Episode 13: Early Black Mormons

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:00)
As we record tonight, we're still kind of decompressing from Sunstone. And if you wickedly didn't go this year, say the requisite amount of Hale Eli's arsenals and so on, one of the most amazing parts of the symposium is you get to interact with so many different kinds of Mormons, order Mormons, Christchurch Mormons, active LDS Mormons, never Mormons, fire breathing ex-Mormons, Mormons behind sheets. The flip side of this, however, is confronting the less pleasant parts of the Mormon spectrum. For example, while I was at the benchmark table, I overheard an older lady discussing a book with her husband. As her comment will shortly demonstrate, she was white. She pointed at friend of the podcast, Paul Reeves' book, Religion of a Different Color, and smugly declared, we were never that.
Wrong.
Well, mostly.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:07)
Hi, this is Lindsay Hansen Park.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:09)
And this is Bryan Buchanan.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:11)
Bringing you the story of Mormonism from the shadow of the Everlasting Hills, straight out of Zion, this isn't your grandpa's Mormon history.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:38)
This is the tale of Mormon saints and sinners from our roots until present day.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:43)
Gird your loins, lock your hearts, and pay your tithing, because we're bringing you the story of Mormonism in all its paradisiacal glory.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:52)
It's the Sunstone History Podcast.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:14)
As we speak, the LDS Church is having yet another very public reckoning with its racial past. Proud BYU alumni can tell you that the administration building on campus is named the Abraham O. Smoot Building.
And while it doesn't have an awesome nickname like the Swicket or Wilk or Marb, is that really a thing?

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:37)
If you haven't seen the Marb's Twitter account, even as a proud Ute, I have to say someone there is doing their job.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:45)
I'm an Aggie, so I never had to know about these things. But still, anyone that knows anything about BYU knows that the Abraham O. Smoot Building is a key part of the university. Though his name might be less well known among the more righteous Utes or Aggie alumni, Smoot was a key figure in 19th century Mormonism.
City alderman, mayor of Salt Lake City and provo, nine-time missionary, bishop, stake president. You know what? You just get tired reading his list of positions.
His son Reed Smoot would later be an apostle and senator or apostolateur, just kidding, that's not a word, but it should be. So he would be both of those things simultaneously. It's not too surprising that a building at BYU was named after him. So what's the hubbub? Oh yeah, one more attribute of Smoot.
He was a slave owner.
Yeah, Abraham Osmoot, legally possessed other human beings.
In Salt Lake Tribune's articles, Peggy Fletcher stacks characteristically awesome article on the controversy. She notes, quote, It troubles historian Paul Reeve to realize that any enslaved Mormon's best hope for freedom rested in the hands of US. Congress, not with fellow Latter-day Saints in Utah, which allowed slaveholders to keep the men and women they owned, end quote. Yeah, that's right. A lot of people don't realize that Mormons owned slaves.
Utah was kind of a slave state, but things weren't always like this.
Back in time we go.

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:37)
As the temple and priesthood ban for people of African ancestry solidified into a policy by the time Brigham Young had succeeded Joseph Smith, another process was happening. Since the presence of early black Mormons, particularly during Joseph Smith's lifetime, greatly complicated that narrative, their history would often later be erased. We're going to try and restore some of their stories tonight.
Think back to our last episode when strange things were afoot at the Circle K, K for Kirtland, of course. We mentioned a man known as Black Pete, who was later described as a revelator. Peter was not only one of the earliest Mormons of color, he was one of the earliest Mormons period.
Born in Pennsylvania about 1775, he seems to have moved to Kirtland in the 1820s. Peter was part of the family associated with Isaac Morley and likely joined the Mormon movement with him in late 1830 or early 1831 Peter was somewhat of an outlier since the majority of the new Mormons in the area were young and Peter was around his mid-50s at that point.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (5:33)
Unfortunately, we don't have a ton of sources regarding his life and his Mormonism. Reports of him indicate he was a good singer, which is intriguing. We don't have much of a sense of what early Mormon hymns looked like. It seems mostly that they would have just continued to use familiar Protestant hymns since uniquely Mormon ones were waiting for people like Eliza Snow and WW. Phelps to get their butts baptized and get to work.