What were the origins of the priesthood and temple restriction (1852–1978), and how should it be understood?
Common ground
A few Black men, including Elijah Able (also spelled Abel), were ordained to the priesthood during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. Brigham Young publicly announced a racial priesthood restriction in 1852; restrictions also excluded Black women and men from temple endowment and sealing ordinances. A 1949 First Presidency statement described the restriction as “not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord.” The restrictions ended in June 1978, when the First Presidency announced a revelation (Official Declaration 2). The Church’s 2013 essay “Race and the Priesthood” disavows the racial theories once used to justify them. Scholars dispute the restriction’s origins, the relationship between racial culture and religious authority, and how to understand both its removal and its lasting effects.
Start here
accessibleThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Race and the Priesthood,” Gospel Topics Essays (2013).
A short official account of the restriction, its end, and the Church’s disavowal of earlier racial explanations.
Mauss argues that the restriction developed after Brigham Young took charge and need not have originated in revelation simply because revelation ended it. He gives greater weight to the practical demands of international growth, especially in Brazil, than to domestic protest in explaining the timing of 1978, while distinguishing policy from its changing doctrinal justifications.
Bush argues that contemporary evidence does not establish a racial priesthood restriction under Joseph Smith and that the restriction developed under Brigham Young. He traces how later leaders attributed it to Smith and built increasingly elaborate scriptural and premortal explanations around it.
Harris argues that the restriction began under Brigham Young and that its removal involved decades of contested decisions by church leaders and efforts by Black members and their allies. He interprets 1978 through both the participants’ understanding of revelation and human agency, emphasizing the restriction’s conflict with worldwide missionary growth and its continuing consequences.
Bringhurst argues that priesthood denial emerged under Brigham Young through several interacting factors, including conflict involving William McCary, slavery in Utah, and intensifying racial prejudice. His account of Elijah Able distinguishes the recognition of an existing Black priesthood holder from the denial of new ordinations and of temple ordinances.
Reeve argues that restrictions developed unevenly under Brigham Young and hardened as Latter-day Saints, themselves racialized by outsiders, sought the privileges and respectability of whiteness at Black members’ expense. He interprets their eventual removal as a return to earlier racial openness and distinguishes God permitting human error from God initiating the restrictions.
In his 1979 article, Esplin proposes that the restriction probably arose in Joseph Smith’s private Nauvoo teachings and was applied by 1843, drawing on early statements by apostles and Brigham Young’s role as Smith’s successor. He identifies this as a circumstantial argument needing additional documentation, and interprets Young’s teaching on continuing revelation as compatible with the 1978 change.
In his 2003 discussion of doctrine, Millet holds that the reasons for the restriction were not revealed and that earlier racial explanations should be discarded. He argues that members can sustain prophetic authority without treating every past explanation as doctrine, and that the 1978 revelation establishes the availability of priesthood and temple blessings regardless of race.
Brooks argues that prophetic infallibility and claims of continuity with the founding church helped institutionalize white supremacy and racial exclusion. She contends that ending the restriction did not end the assurances of racial innocence that shielded members and leaders from responsibility, and calls for historical reckoning and repair.
Smith argues that ending the restriction did not end the racial teachings and patterns of exclusion that burden Black Latter-day Saints. He uses a framework of internalized oppression and racial battle fatigue to interpret the emotional costs of seeking belonging in a religious community shaped by white authority and racial prejudice.
Kimball describes the 1978 revelation as the culmination of Spencer W. Kimball’s prolonged study, prayer, consultation, and efforts to prepare other leaders for change. His account places the the spiritual confirmation participants described alongside the challenges of global church growth and changing perceptions of the restriction, rather than treating revelation as an event without preparation.
Mueller argues that Mormon scripture and the historical archive helped produce racial identities, combining universal salvation with whiteness as an ideal. He centers Black and Native American participants in this history, treating the movement’s racial inclusion and exclusion as competing religious possibilities rather than a simple transition from equality to prejudice.
Stevenson argues that understanding the restriction requires a global history of Black Mormon communities, including their agency and lived relationships, alongside decisions by church leaders. He situates the 2013 disavowal within a long struggle over the restriction’s justifications and gives Black participants’ own documents a central place in that history.