News Conference Question for Mitt Romney:

Many thanks to Steve Benson from RfM

"Why is it that your Mormon Church has officially gone on record as teaching that Blacks will be servants to White people in Mormon heaven?"
That is a question deserving to be asked of Mormon presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

It is an eminently fair inquiry--one that deserves a direct and honest answer--because if Romney fails to denounce, reject and separate himself from this historically-stated, racist Mormon teaching and practice, Romney himself is guilty of perpetuating bigotry in the name of the Mormon God and the Church in which he proudly claims devoted membership.
_____


If Romney doubts that the Mormon Church has viewed Blacks as servant material in the LDS hereafter, then he should be made aware of the fact that the Mormon Church's historical position on people of African descent has included this very teaching--as uttered from the highest levels of the LDS Church hierarchy.

Again, for Mr. Romney's benefit, that teaching is this:

Blacks, by the decree of your Church's highest leaders, have historically been assigned as servants to White people in the Mormon heaven.
_____


The Case of the Black Woman Sealed to Joseph Smith as a Domestic Servant

In August 1908, then-Mormon Church president Joseph F. Smith recounted the situation of a devout Mormon African-American woman who was sealed to Joseph Smith--not as one of Smith's many plural wives--but, rather, as Smith's servant.

Her name was Jane Manning James and her demeaning, dehumanizing and ultimately futile struggle for equal rights at the hands of the Mormon Church's White ruling elite is summarized below:

"A free-born servant, Jane Elizabeth Manning was born in the late 1810s or early 1820s and grew up in Connecticut during the 1820s, earning her living as a domestic.

"When Mormon missionaries came to the area, she listened and along with other family members joined the Church.

"In 1843, eight members of the Manning family started toward Nauvoo but became separated at Buffalo, New York, when they were refused passage on a boat because they were Black. The Mannings set out on foot and, after experiencing illness, threatened imprisonment, and extreme cold, finally arrived in Nauvoo where Joseph Smith welcomed them into his home.

"Before the Latter-day Saints left Nauvoo, Jane Manning married another black Mormon, Isaac James. James, a native of New Jersey, had converted to Mormonism in 1839 at the age of nineteen and immigrated to Nauvoo.

"Their first son was born at Winter Quarters in 1846. The couple had six more children in Utah. In 1869 Isaac left the family, selling his property to Jane. He returned to Salt Lake City approximately twenty-one years later just before he passed away. When he died in 1891, Jane held his funeral in her home.

"Jane Manning James was a member of the female Relief Society and donated to the St. George, Manti, and Logan temple funds.

"She repeatedly petitioned the First Presidency to be endowed and to have her children sealed to her. . . .

"After Isaac died, Jane asked that they [her children] be given the ordination of adoption so they would be together in the next life.

"She explained in correspondence to Church leaders that Emma Smith had offered to have her sealed to the Smith family as a child. She reconsidered that decision and asked to be sealed to the Smiths.

"Permission for all of these requests was denied.

"Instead the First Presidency 'decided she might be adopted into the family of Joseph Smith as a servant, which was done, a special . . . ceremony having been prepared for the purpose.'

"The minutes of the Council of Twelve Apostles continued:

"'But Aunt Jane was not satisfied with this, and as a mark of dissatisfaction she applied again after this for sealing blessings, but of course in vain.' . . .

"Jane Manning James bore a testimony of Mormonism to the end of her life [as follows, in her own words]:

"'My faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, as taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is as strong today, nay, it is if possible stronger than it was the day I was first baptized. I pay my tithes and offerings, keep the word of wisdom, I go to bed early and rise early, I try in my feeble way to set a good example to all.'

"When she died in 1908, Church president Joseph F. Smith spoke at her funeral."

At her funeral, President Smith admitted that "Aunt Jane" (as she was known) had been relegated to eternal servanthood in the Mormon realms above, despite being a valiant, faithful Church member to the end:

". . . [E]fforts . . . had been made by Aunt Jane to receive her endowments and be sealed to her husband and have her children sealed to their parents and her appeal was made to all the Presidents from President Young down to the present First Presidency.

"But President Cannon conceived the idea that, under the circumstances, it would be proper to permit her to go to the temple to be adopted to the Prophet Joseph Smith as his servant and this was done.

"This seemed to ease her mind for a little while but did not satisfy her, and she still pleaded for her endowments."

("The LDS Church and African Americans THE PRIESTHOOD BAN," at http://www.ldshistory.net/1990/embry.htm and
("Excerpts From The Weekly Council Meetings Of The Quorum Of The Twelve Apostles," in Jerald and Sandra Tanner, "Mormonism--Shadow or Reality?," p. 584, at http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/changech10a.htm ).
_____


Mormon Apostle Teaches That Even Baptized Blacks Can Do No Better Than Servanthood in the Mormon Hereafter

Mormon Church apostle Mark E. Petersen was even more explicit in peddling the patently patronizing and prejudicial notion that the highest degree to which Blacks could rise in post-mortal Mormon heaven was that of servant status.

Petersen declared in a sermon to BYU students that baptized Mormon Blacks would receive only qualified acceptance into Mormonism's highest degree of glory:

"In spite of all he [the Black person] did in the pre-existent life, the Lord is willing, if the Negro accepts the gospel with real, sincere faith, and is really converted, to give him the blessings of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost.

"If that Negro is faithful all his days, he can and will enter the Celestial Kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory."

(Mark E. Petersen, "Race Problems—As They Affect The Church," speech at the "Convention of Teachers of Religion at the College Level at Brigham Young University," Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, 27 August 1954, quoted in http://www.realmormonhistory.com/god&skin.htm#Mark E. Petersen's Racist Talk at BYU, and "Racist statements by LDS leaders during the 1950s," at http://www.religioustolerance.org/lds_race.htm and ).

*****


So, Mr. Romney, again, "Why is it that your Mormon Church has officially gone on record as teaching that Blacks will be servants to White people in Mormon heaven?"

Mr. Romney? . . .

Um, Mr. Romney?

Please come back and answer the question, Mr. Romney.