How the Priesthood-Temple Ban Became Fully Entrenched Policy in the Church

Once people come to terms with the uncomfortable idea that Brigham Young committed an error in endorsing a priesthood ban on church members with black African ancestry, a puzzling question naturally follows: if the ban was an error, then why didn’t it get corrected earlier than 1978? There were nine church presidents between Brigham Young and Spencer W. Kimball, and 101 years between President Young’s death in 1877 and President Kimball’s revelation in 1978. So why did it take so long to correct this mistake and again offer full privileges to black Africans in the church, as they had enjoyed in Joseph Smith’s day? In today’s episode of Church History Matters we attempt to offer at least the beginning of an answer to this question by tracing the key moments and decisions in the leadership councils of the church when, instead of correcting this error, they came to conclusions that led to an unfortunate hardening in place of the priesthood ban. In this episode, the years 1879, 1904, 1907, and 1908 will, sadly, be added alongside the year 1852 as we piece together both the timeline and the reasoning behind this ban.