Twenty years ago, in June of 1978, the First Presidency of the LDS Church made an announcement of epic proportions: The God-imposed curse against people of African descent had been lifted. According to the Church, God had revealed through His prophets that it would henceforth be possible for "all worthy male members of the Church" to become LDS priesthood bearers.1
This was big news, especially for Mormons who had been denied this very essential element of their eternal progression (salvation). They would no longer be limited to a hope of mere servitude for all eternity; with the availability of the priesthood they could now look forward to reigning as Gods in the Celestial kingdom if they proved worthy. The curse had been removed.
As extraordinary as this was, it was not the first time such a thing had transpired. The Book of Mormon tells of another group of people who had been similarly cursed. As the story goes, Lehi and his family left the land of Jerusalem to journey to the American promised land. Almost immediately there was a division between those who were faithful Saints and those who were rebellious. The faithful, who believed the revelations and tried to keep the commandments of God, came to be called Nephites. Those whose minds were darkened by unbelief and who became apostates from the Church were called Lamanites.
God announced that these wicked Lamanites "shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord." Nephi, one of the greatest Book of Mormon prophets, wrote, "And [God] had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. …wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them."2 Nephi went on to explain that the Lamanites would become an idle people full of mischief and subtlety; they would be loathsome to the Nephites. The dark skin--the mark of the curse--was put on them in order that the faithful Nephites would not intermix with the apostate Lamanites.
LDS apostle James Talmadge explained, "The Lamanites…lived a wild nomadic life, and degenerated into the fallen state in which the American Indians--their lineal descendants--were found by those who rediscovered the western continent in later times."3
The Book of Mormon tells us that after a significant period of time some of the Lamanites "converted unto the Lord" and "united with the Nephites." Then a miracle occurred: "Their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites; and their young men and their daughters became exceedingly fair…"4 The curse was removed and the mark of the curse--the dark skin--went with it. Indeed, a cross-referenced Book of Mormon text prophesied, "Their scales of darkness shall fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and a delightsome people."5 The Book of Mormon says the converted Lamanites "were called Nephites." President Spencer W. Kimball taught the Lamanites actually became Nephites.6 The progression of 3 Nephi 2:12-16 is this:
Prior to the removal of the curse, both the Nephites and the converted Lamanites were said to be righteous; they were also members of the true Church.7 The question must be asked: What, then, was the difference between the Nephites and the converted Lamanites? What was the exact nature of the Lamanite curse?
The Book of Mormon says the curse consisted of being "cut off from the presence of the Lord." Joseph Fielding Smith, tenth president of the LDS Church, said this was the "withdrawal of the Spirit of the Lord."8 Smith's statement is better understood in light of his additional teaching: "All through the Book of Mormon we find references to the Nephites officiating by virtue of the Higher Priesthood after the holy order…we learn that it was by the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood that the Nephites administered from the time they left Jerusalem until the time of the coming of Jesus Christ."9 The Nephites had the Priesthood; the Lamanites did not. I suggest that when God lifted the curse from the converted Lamanites, this allowed them to receive the Priesthood. Then, just as the promise said, their dark skin became white.
There is an amazing parallel between the Book of Mormon Lamanite saga and LDS doctrines regarding the African race in our day. According to the LDS Church, both groups of people were unrighteous; both groups were cursed for their iniquity by being denied the privilege of the Priesthood; both received the same mark of the curse--dark skin; both were marked for the express purpose of identification, that they would not intermarry with the righteous, white-skinned people; both, because of their faithfulness, had the curse removed.10 But the similarity ends here, just short of the Book of Mormon promise of becoming "white and delightsome." The Lamanites, when delivered from the curse, were also relieved of the mark of that curse. Those of African heritage, twenty years after the curse was repealed, continue to bear that mark.
Lest one misunderstand and think the removal of the mark of the curse was only a promise for the ancients, consider the remarks made by Spencer W. Kimball at the October 1960 General Conference of the LDS Church: "The day of the Lamanites is nigh. For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome. In this picture of the twenty Lamanite missionaries, fifteen of the twenty were as light as Anglos; five were darker but equally delightsome. The children in the home placement program in Utah11 are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation.
"At one meeting a father and mother and their sixteen-year-old daughter were present, the little member girl--sixteen--sitting between the dark father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parents--on the same reservation, in the same hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather. There was a doctor in a Utah city who for two years had had an Indian boy in his home who stated that he was some shades lighter than the younger brother just coming into the program from the reservation. These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness."12
If the Book of Mormon is to be taken seriously, there must be a consistency between its teachings and reality. The Book of Mormon avers that those cursed as to the Priesthood and marked with dark-skin will become white when the curse is removed. If this is the result for converted Lamanites, is it not reasonable to expect the same for Blacks? The Book of Mormon fails on many points, the issue of racism being but one. How much better to place one's trust in the Bible and its Author Who proclaims: "The Lord seeth not as man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart…For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation… For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."13