Why did the Mormon church, for more than a century, refuse to ordain blacks to the priesthood?
• More about the Mormon priesthood • Read the comments of historians, scholars and Mormons on the ban. From 1849 until 1978, blacks could join the church but weren’t allowed to be ordained to the priesthood. In the Mormon faith, being ordained to the priesthood is similar to a bar mitzvah, a more or less universal rite of passage that every Mormon male undergoes. Priesthood authority allows Mormon men to perform sacraments, give blessings, go on missions, hold office in the church hierarchy and seal couples in marriage. Women have never been allowed to hold the priesthood. Several reasons were given for the 130-year ban. The early rationale was that blacks were descended from the Old Testament figure Cain, whose skin was darkened after he murdered his brother Abel. (This reasoning was also used by other Christian churches to justify their exclusion of blacks.) Brigham Young in 1852 stated, “[A]ny man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] … in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no
