Newell G. Bringhurst teaches history and political science at the College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California. He is the author of Brigham Young and the Expanding American Frontier and other books. Darron T. Smith is an African American convert to the LDS church. He is the author of What Matters Most: A Story of Human Struggle and Potential and is currently a lecturer at Utah Valley State College.

• Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Newell G. Bringhurst Darron T. Smith 1. The "Missouri Thesis" Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People Newell G. Bringhurst 2. The Traditions of Their Fathers: Myth vs. Reality in LDS Scriptural Writings Alma Allred 3. Two Perspectives: The Religious Hopes of "Worthy" African American Latter-day Saints before the 1978 Revelation Ronald G. Coleman and Darius A. Gray 4. ASpanning the Priesthood Revelation (1978): Two Multigenerational Case Studies Jessie L. Embry 5. Casting Off the "Curse of Cain": The Extent and Limits of Progress since 1978 Armand L. Mauss 6. BAfrican American Latter-day Saints: A Sociological Perspective Cardell K. Jacobson 7. "How Do Things Look on the Ground?": The LDS African American Community in Atlanta, Georgia Ken Driggs 8. Unpacking Whiteness in Zion: Some Personal Reflections and General Observations Darron T. Smith Contributors Index Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: African American Mormons

"One of the most far-reaching studies of black Mormons to date."--Publishers Weekly"Bringhurst and Smith have edited an outstanding series of essays on the problems of racism among the Mormons and the exclusion of African American men from the priesthood of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."--Choice"Black and Mormon eloquently demonstrates how external social events influenced the Church's policy of denying blacks the priesthood for more than a century."--BYU Studies