I did know about the inherent racism of earlier eras. As a teenager (in Oregon) we had a youth fireside where an African America member shared what it was like to be a black man, who was a member of the church from 1940 on. His testimony was extremely powerful. Two things that always have stuck out, although the entire fireside has been formative to my understanding of race in the Mormon church and culture, was that he started to memorize the sacrament prayers and the form for every blessing in the 1960s, but was unable to use them until long after his daughters had been baptized by a white bishop. He also shared what a difference his ordination made in his understanding of Priesthoid power and authority.

His testimony of the gospel had always been strong, (it had to have been to put up with the blatant racism he encountered, including being asked to sit outside the building when he made the trip to go to General Conference) but his feelings of being accepted as a full member of the church did not come until a white widow asked him to baptize her son, in the late 1980s.

I have my notes from the fireside, but I did not record his name. I sincerely wish I had not made that oversight. I did record that it was held in 1990.

(I know this is four years late, but since Keepa is a repository for so much church history, I wanted to share this story.)

Ardis, I agree with your comment about inoculating in # 9. But this is absolutely so out there, from our current perspective, that we have to really adjust our thinking in terms of the 1930′s and the culture.

I keep thinking of the concept of how far we’ve come, but have a different question, heard repeatedly from the back seat of our car on vacations, that I now find myself asking: Are we there yet?

(Wasn’t Elder Perry an executive with American Stores or one of its predecessors before he was called as an apostle?)

ZCMI (“The Corporation will miss the sage advice and leadership of Elder L. Tom Perry, formerly Chairman of the Board of Directors. Elder Perry has declined to stand for re-election as a Director consistent with the request of his ecclestiastical leaders that General Authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints not act as directors of commercial enterprises”).

American Stores (“Eleven directors are to be elected at the 1996 Annual Meeting for terms of one year, except that L. Tom Perry has advised the Board that if elected he may resign in January 1997″).

Maybe the 1996 statement was just to clean up the stray involvement by general authorities who weren’t around in 1985, or just the odd man whose son or other family member had put him on the board of his local Jiffy Lube franchise.