". . .and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile." ( Ne. 26:33.)
THE revelation extending priesthood blessings to all worthy male members of the Church opened the way for the Church to fulfill its responsibility to take the gospel to all the world, said Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Council of the Twelve.
Delivering the keynote address at BYU's LDS Afro-American Symposium June 8, Elder Oaks declared, "We must proclaim the gospel, redeem the dead and perfect the saints, and this responsibility applies to all peoples everywhere."
The symposium, the first of its kind at BYU, coincided with the 10th anniversary of the priesthood revelation. Symposium topics focused upon the blacks' experiences in the Church, but the overall theme seemed to point toward the hope that Church members would accept blacks as "just good, faithful Latter-day Saints."
"I hope that in the future that blacks in the Church would lose the feeling of being exotic and just become generic," said Alan Cherry, director of the LDS Afro-American Oral History project of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at BYU. The Redd Center sponsored the symposium.
Cherry was one of 10 LDS blacks from diverse backgrounds and areas of the country participating in the symposium. Among them were Burgess Owens, New York businessman and former pro football player; Johnny McKay, brick mason and high councilor from Greensboro, N.C.; Cathy Stokes, former Relief Society president from Illinois; and Robert Stevenson, the first black student body officer at BYU and now a businessman in Georgia.
The audience, gathered in the de Jong Concert Hall, was a small but enthusiastic group. Some were BYU students and professors, others were LDS blacks from Utah and other parts of the country, and three were members of the North America Southeast Area presidency. Elder Rex D. Pinegar, area president, said he and his counselors, Elders Hartman Rector Jr. and J. Richard Clarke, all of the First Quorum of the Seventy, came to learn more about LDS blacks who have been joining the Church in growing numbers in the Southeast United States.
In his address, Elder Oaks recalled that he was working with his sons on the driveway of his Spanish Fork Canyon home when he was informed of the revelation in a phone call from Elder Boyd K. Packer of the Council of the Twelve.
"I walked back to the hillside," he remembered. "I sat down on a pile of dirt and beckoned to my boys. As I told them what had happened, I cried with joy."
Elder Oaks then reviewed how the revelation came about. He quoted from President Spencer W. Kimball's account in which the prophet said he felt close to the Savior and Heavenly Father as he made numerous visits to the upper rooms of the temple. The Lord, Elder Oaks quoted the prophet as saying, made it clear to him what was to be done.
The New York Times called the revelation another example of the Church adapting its beliefs to American culture, Elder Oaks said. But a historian, Professor Jan Shipps of Indiana University, said the change had "to do not with America so much as with the world."
"Whether we look on the revelation as the end of the beginning of the restoration or as the beginning of the end of what it portends," Elder Oaks noted, "it is difficult to overstate its importance in the fulfillment of divine command that the gospel must go to every nation, kindred and people."
Reaction to the revelation was extraordinary, Elder Oaks said, but three responses interested him the most:
The reactions of black members.
"The black members of the Church, small in numbers but great in righteousness and faith, reacted with dignity and joy," he related. "For them, the significance of the revelation was that it opened a door long closed."
LDS blacks looked forward, not backward, he added. They anticipated the opportunities of the future instead of the disappointments of the past.
The reaction of other members.
"With very few exceptions, the other members of the Church accepted the revelation instantly and acted upon it in good faith," Elder Oaks said.
The actions of Church leaders.
"Immediately after the revelation, they [Church leaders] were treating black members of the Church in exactly the same way as other members," he said. He quoted from Ruffin Bridgeforth's experience of having Elder Packer ordain him. " `Before he ordained me, he said, "Ruffin, your wife has been ill. I would like to give her a blessing." Then he said, "No, I'll ordain you, and you can give her a blessing."
"In the months that followed," Elder Oaks continued, "black members were called as missionaries and as officers and teachers in various Church organizations. Soon, black priesthood leaders began to appear in the ranks of bishops, stake presidents and mission presidents."
Missionary activity among the blacks also increased, he said. Significant growth occurred immediately in Brazil and in the Caribbean. In the year following the revelation, missionaries began working in western Africa. This year a stake was established in Nigeria, he added.
Elder Pinegar, in an interview with the Church News, said of the symposium, "We're learning a lot. This information will be worthwhile as we work with an increasing number of blacks joining the Church in the Southeast. We're hearing their [LDS blacks'] feelings. They seem to be saying, `I just want to be seen as a member of the Church.' "
Elder Pinegar praised the symposium because it focused on the culture of the gospel as the solution to national, ethnic or racial differences within the Church. The culture of the gospel, he said, overcomes all other cultural differences.
"To me that has been the key to this whole thing," he said.
Eight of the symposium participants had been interviewed by Cherry as part of an Afro-American Oral History project. Since 1985, he has interviewed 225 LDS blacks nationwide.
"Most interviewees possessed unrehearsed, unprompted enthusiasm for their membership in the LDS Church despite whatever negative experience they encountered," Cherry said. "They seemed to enjoy the same associations, enthusiasm and expectations as white members and interacted freely within the Church. Their integrational experience within the Church appeared to be superior to anything they experienced outside of it."
Cherry referred to the challenges faced by LDS blacks as "gathering pains" incident to an expanding membership blending various cultural elements into a unified group.
Sister Stokes, who works for the Illinois Department of Health, said, "The Church is the only place I know where I can sit down with a member of another race and talk about what's important to me in my life."
