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Join us next month for this historic conference!
On June 8, 1978, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced Spencer W. Kimball’s revelation extending the lay priesthood to "all worthy male members . . . without regard for race or color." To mark this event and analyze the Mormon Church’s ongoing efforts to achieve racial equality, the Tanner Humanities Center will host “Black, White, and Mormon II,” a multidisciplinary conference in collaboration with the College of Humanities’ Simmons Mormon Studies Professor Paul Reeve. This follows our 2015 conference on Mormonism and race that received national and international press coverage. Here, we expand these themes and examine new issues to investigate how the LDS Church sustains an ever-increasing multiracial and multicultural membership and to explore the impact of doctrinal change at the grassroots.
“Black, White, and Mormon II” will begin on June 29, 2018 with the Sterling M. McMurrin Lecture on Religion and Culture delivered by African American writer, historian, and activist Latter-day Saint Darius Gray. Gray joined the Mormon Church in 1964 and has been a central figure in pressing for racial change and serving as a voice for African American Mormons.
On June 30, 2018, scholarly and community panels will discuss how African American Mormons understand America’s current racial and religious climate, will examine the Mormon Church’s racial policies and practices and will explore the impact of the 1978 revelation. Panelists also will assess the Mormon Church’s progress on race at institutional and membership levels and consider what needs to happen to advance racial equality moving forward.
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