"Blindside":Utah on the Eve of Brown v. Board of Education By F. ROSS PETERSON. ---- On May 17,2004, numerous speeches and memorials reminded the entire nation of the fiftieth anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education case, which ended legal segregated schools in the United States. Public television produced a five-part serieson the continual impact of the decision.This landmark decision significantly altered the fabric of American life,not only in the South, but also throughout the nation,including Utah. Although most Utah leaders, including Governor J. Bracken Lee,remained silent on the Supreme Court decision, they failed to understandthat the Brown decision would have ramifications far beyond public educa-tion.1Both the state of Utah and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-daySaints had serious discrimination issues in the 1950s.Since the populationof Utah is overwhelmingly one religion,the LDS faith,the members of thechurch,as citizens had accepted racial discrimination as a way of life.As aconsequence of both belief and custom,Utah's citizens were blindsided bythe Brown decision of the Supreme Courtand its ultimate impact.In early January 1954,a famous African-American opera star,Marian Anderson,cameto Utah to perform in concert.Earlier in hercareer,Anderson gained fame because she wasF.Ross Peterson was professor of history at Utah State University for many years and is currently presidentof Deep Springs College.This photograph from the UtahState Historical Society Collectionshowing an unidentified integratedschool class was probably taken inSalt Lake City during the 1920s. denied the opportunity to perform at Constitution Hall in Washington,D.C.The Daughters of the American Revolution,who owned the facility,maintained a segregated organization.Eleanor Roosevelt,the first lady ofthe land,arranged for the concert to be moved to the steps of the LincolnMemorial.Throughout her career,Anderson had confronted segregationand discrimination.Utah proved to be no different.In Salt Lake City,hersponsors found lodging in the Hotel Utah,but Anderson had to agree touse the freight elevator and receive her meals in her room.2Later that weekin Logan,she stayed in the home of the Utah State Agricultural College(now Utah State University) music professor Walter Welti because publicaccommodations could not be obtained.Marian Anderson's experience was one of many Utah examples of racialdiscrimination that also included other noted entertainers.Paul Robeson,Harry Belafonte,Ella Fitzgerald,and Lionel Hampton all experienced hoteland restaurant discrimination in Salt Lake City.Even Ralph Bunche,American Ambassador to the United Nations,was offered the same treat-ment as Anderson at the Hotel Utah — freight elevator and meals in yourroom — likewise Congressman Adam Clayton Powell and his wife,actressHazel Scott.3Visiting ministers and church leaders usually had to stay inprivate homes.The Newhouse Realty Company,owner of the former fourhundred-room Newhouse Hotel located on the corner of 400 South andMain Streets,denied Bishop Osmonde Walker of the African MethodistEpiscopal (A.M.E.) Church admission.In 1954,Utah's state and community statutes as well as accepting indi-vidual practices,contained numerous examples of blatant discrimination.At the very time the United States was trying to win a Cold War and influence emerging non-white nations that the American example ofdemocracy should be followed,Anderson's experience and those of theothers illustrated the reality of racism.Also in January 1954,President David O.McKay of The Church of JesusChrist of Latter-day Saints,whose office was only a few yards east of theHotel Utah,decided to add South Africa to his itinerary for a lengthy tripthat already included Europe and South America.While his home state andthe buildings the LDS church owned,like the Hotel Utah,practiced racialdiscrimination,McKay had to deal with new segregation issues in the far-off nation of South Africa,which had recently incorporated apartheid as apolicy to separate all races.McKay confided to his secretary that the issuehe had to confront was “what to do about the present practice in South Africa of not conferring the priesthood.”4Intent on carrying out a world-wide vision for the church that included building temples in England,Switzerland,and New Zealand,McKay hoped to expand the influence ofthe church throughout the world.The separate worlds in which Marian Anderson and David McKayresided and influenced changed dramatically on May 17,1954,when theUnited States Supreme Court unanimously declared that segregated publicschools were no longer legal.In May of 1954,only four months after theevents described above,neither Anderson nor McKay anticipated the fullimpact of the Brown v.Board of Educationof Topeka decision.Most Utahns,because there were no segregated schools in the state,saw the case as irrele-vant,but they were wrong.The court's decision helped set in motion achain of events that ultimately saw both the state of Utah and the LDSchurch alter their legal and theological positions relative to race.Racial segregation had been legal in the United States since the Plessy v.Fergusondecision in a Louisiana case in 1896.The Louisiana law that wasupheld by the Supreme Court restricted blacks and whites from sittingtogether in railroad or streetcars.Theoretically,the facilities were “separatebut equal.”However,the reality is that the court decision prompted a del-uge of segregation laws that separated the races in every aspect of life.ThePlessy decision restricted the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendmentto the U.S.Constitution.Consequently,many states,including Utah hadsegregation laws affecting housing,public accommodations,theaters,andrestaurants.Many more states also had restrictive laws.5World War II had a dramatic impact on conceptions of race and philoso-phies of racial superiority.The United States and its allies had defeated NaziGermany and the Hitlerian extreme doctrines on race.Soldiers,diplomats,and journalists had witnessed the dramatic and traumatic impact of theholocaust in Europe and instances in Asia like the rape of Nanking inChina.Race,ethnicity,and prejudice had led to human genocide.Theirony and contradiction for the United States was that this nation foughtWorld War II with a segregated military force.That fact was not lost onmany Americans of all races who fought in the war and helped establish thepeace at the war's conclusion.It is important to note that during the war,thousands of Americans relocated to where military related jobs were moreplentiful.Utah felt the effects of this,to a small degree,as federal facilitiessupporting the war effort grew rapidly,primarily in the Ogden and Hill Air Force Base area and some African-Americansfound employment in Tooele County,Clearfield,and other facilities.In 1946 President Harry Truman,undernational and international pressure,appointeda Civil Rights Commission to recommend national action relative to allminority citizens.The Commission reported that the United States couldnot assume a position of moral leadership in the world as long as the nationcondoned racial segregation.They recommended that the President takeexecutive action and also push for legislation to address the issue.Trumanresponded to the commission's report by integrating the military and feder-al employment by Executive Order in 1948.This decision had a directimpact on African-Americans in Utah because of the defense facilities atHill Field,Dugway,Tooele,Ogden,and Clearfield.Utah's African-American population grew by more than 50 percent between 1948 and1960.(The U.S.Census figures of the African-American population inUtah for 1950 was 2,729 and for 1960 was 4,148.) Simultaneously,otheraspects of segregated America changed because of direct action by individ-uals and organizations.Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey,owner of theBrooklyn Dodgers,by integrating major league baseball in 1947,dramati-cally documented that times were changing.The success of Robinsonopened opportunities for young African-Americans to participate in minorleagues as well and this eventually affected the Class C Pioneer Leaguewith affiliates in Salt Lake City and Ogden.The 1953 Ogden Reds,led byfuture Hall of Fame outfielder African-American Frank Robinson,won theThe photograph of the entranceto the HotelUtah with a newspa-per boy was taken September 4,1946. Pioneer League pennant.As early as 1953,Overton Curtis and Zeke Smith,two black football players,played for Utah State Agricultural College.Weber Junior College and the University of Utah also moved to includeblack athletes on their sports teams.6In spite of Truman's executive decisions and some direct action,officialsof the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP) chose public education as their main avenue to seek to destroylegal segregation.Thurgood Marshall,who served as legal director of theNAACP from 1940 to 1961,and his mentor Charles Houston,a HowardUniversity law professor,decided that segregated public education easilydocumented the effects of discrimination on lives.(Marshall later served onthe U.S.Supreme Court for twenty-four years.) Gradually,they worked tostrike down racial barriers in professional schools and graduate programs.Insuch decisions as Sweat v.Painterand McLaurin v.Oklahoma,the SupremeCourt consistently sided with the NAACP attorneys as they establishedprecedent for documented educational discrimination.By 1950 Marshalland Houston turned their focus to public education at all levels fromkindergarten through high school.Earlier,they had challenged issues ofequal pay and benefits.A year later,attorneys had five plaintiffs who hadbeen denied admission to white schools,willing to appeal negative localschool board decisions all the way to the United States Supreme Court.7Atthat time twenty-one states and the District of Columbia maintained segre-gated schools.Utah was not one of those states.While these cases proceed-ed through the judicial system,other aspects of discrimination and segrega-tion became focal points across the nation and in Utah.An examination of Utah education law and practice in 1954 revealedthat the Beehive State did not legally discriminate against minority stu-dents,but there were instances of black college graduates not hired asteachers in the schools,and one female student was denied the opportunityto student-teach in the Salt Lake City area.As of May 1954,the NAACPreported that no African-American had taught at any level in the Utahpublic education system,although the U.S.Bureau of Indian Affairs hiredRuby Price to teach at the Intermountain Indian School in Brigham Cityin 1950.The first African-American public school teacher was hired inOctober 1954 in the Ogden district.8 Discrimination was rampant in the hoteland restaurant industry in Utah.A UtahSenate Committee was established to investi-gate discrimination against minorities.The committee,which was calledthe “Selvin Committee”named for its chair Sol J.Selvin,distributed ques-tionnaires to employers,trade union officials,government officials,andemployees.One of the committee's conclusions reported in January 1947was “there is a substantial body of unfair and discriminatory practices in thestate's industry,which operates to deny minority groups among our citizensequal rights to gainful employment.”The returns from the committee'squestionnaires indicated that an enactment of a law would reduce some ofthe discriminatory policies within the state's employment sector.9Eventhough a 1948 law stated that refusal of admittance without just causemade the innkeeper guilty of a misdemeanor,de facto segregation policiespersisted for another decade.Legislative attempts to revise the law and passstronger civil rights legislation failed earlier in 1945 and 1947,and later in1949 and 1953.10 Local real estate attempts to create segregated neighbor-hoods in both Ogden and Salt Lake City failed,although the proposals didend up in the courts.A 1954 report indicated that restrictive covenants andAfrican American waiters at HotelUtah, July 1913. SHIPLERCOLLECTION, UTAHSTATEHISTORICALSOCIETY attempted property prohibitions proved ineffective in Utah.There were twosignificant cases in the court system in 1954 that involved ramifications ofthe concept of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.Boththe Gaddis Investment Company v.Morrisonand Tucker v.Washington Terracecases dealt with developer and homeowner attempts to restrict housing pro-jects to those “of the Caucasian race.”11Twenty-two residents living in GCourt,Army Way,filed the Washington Terrace housing case.Samuel H.King,spokesperson for the group,stated that the Washington Terrace Non-Profit Housing Corporation was “resorting to racial discrimination,”andwas attempting to move African-American families from a present “favor-able”location to another less desirable location within the WashingtonTerrace community.12While numerous housing restrictions existed,more blatant discriminationoccurred in the private sector beyond hotels and restaurants.Almost allbowling alleys,movie theaters,dance halls,taverns,social clubs,and recre-ational facilities were segregated.Blacks had their own Masonic Order,Eagles,Elks,and Odd Fellows lodges and certainly their own religious con-gregations.There were a few public complaints aired about blatant discrimi-nation.In a letter to the editor of the Salt Lake Tribune,July 7,1955,MarionL.Mills,a Black military veteran and student who later worked for the U.S.Post Office wrote:“Yes,a Negro problem does exist in Salt Lake City.Negroes are required to occupy balcony seats in many local theaters.Negroes are not served in many cafes or other eating establishments.Manytypes of employment are closed to Negroes.Most night clubs,bars,etc.,donot admit Negroes as customers.”Indeed,much of basic life in Utah wassegregated and exclusive.However,in 1954 Utah education as well as laborunions did not practice racial separation.On the other hand,almost all ofUtah's recreational facilities were segregated until Robert Freed and hisfamily purchased Lagoon and later,Rainbow Gardens,which was located onMain Street between Fourth and Fifth South streets in Salt Lake City.Theyopened these previously segregated amusement and entertainment facilitiesto all races around 1950.Freed believed in open access,private and public.He wanted to attract entertainers and their fans to both areas and believedin that policy.13Freed once said,“One of my most satisfying experiences waswhen Lagoon opened its doors to people of all races.”14In the area of work,Utah labor unions had abandoned segregation andthe National Congress of Industrial Organizations had tendered a friend ofthe court brief in the Brown case.Although union numbers were smallinUtah,the railroad brotherhoods offered an affirmative recruitment of workers.Many small black owned businesses,especially in Ogden,offeredadditional employment opportunities,but the largest minority employer in1954 was the federal government.According to the NAACP,in 1954 therewas only one African-American lawyer and one African-American physi-cian practicing in the entire state.There were three nurses in Salt Lake Cityhospitals.All hospitals admitted openly and fairly,but restricted blackpatients to private rooms.Salt Lake City area hospitals maintained segregat-ed blood in their blood banks even though all medical knowledge deniedracial distinction among blood types.While the NAACP and other organizations chipped away at public seg-regation practices,individual beliefs and concerns could not be altered bylaw.An example of this reality was Utah's anti-miscegenation law passed in1953 which held that any marriage between Caucasian and minority citi-zens was null and void.The statute even went so far as to enumerate thatmulattos,quadroons,or octoroons,were considered black.One of thenation's most prohibitive laws,it fueled the fire of prejudice.It is no won-der that W.Miller Barbour,a field director for the National Urban League,published a report in the November 1954 Frontiermagazine stating,“Inlarge areas of Utah,Nevada,and northern Arizona,and in most of thesmaller towns,the discrimination is almost as severe as in the south.”Andregarding trailer parks,“We encountered complete rejection in Utah.”15Thesame month,in a “Symposium on the Negro in Utah”held at WeberCollege in Ogden,Harmon O.Cole,who described himself as “a person ofNegroid ancestry,”confirmed Barbour's report:We are not free to eat or to sleep where we want,nor,in a theater,can we sit where wechoose;we are even,in some instances,refused the common courtesy of going openlyto a hotel to see a Caucasian friend ...A few months ago,my wife was asked to cometo a hotel in Salt Lake City to call on a Caucasian friend.She was asked at the desk totake the service elevator to her friend's room,since Negroes were not allowed to usethe passenger elevator.16 At the same symposium,attorney Wallace R.Bennett reviewed the statelegislature's repeated failure to pass legislation that would outlaw racial dis-crimination:“In 1945,an equal rights act was introduced in the [Utah]Senate which would have expressly prohibited “discrimination on accountof race in admission to any place of public accommodation.”The bill diedin committee,however,as it did again in 1947,1949,and 1951.No effortwas made in 1953.”17According to Bennett,the problems facing Utah African-Americans did not generate much interest in Utah because thepopulation was small and there were no segregated schools.He did con-clude that Utah should be concerned because there was so much blatantdiscrimination in housing,lodging,restaurants,marriage law,and religion.He also said that the issue needed to be discussed and progress demonstratedbecause of the national press and its focus on Utah and LDS church issues.Utah's history often cannot separate itself from Mormon history.Thelegislature,most elected officials,judges,lawyers,builders,and propertyowners are members of the LDS church.True or not,the perception isoften that Utah law reflects church wishes.As a result,in order to under-stand Utah's 1954 mood,it is essential to examine internal decisions anddiscussions within the LDS church.President David O.McKay and TheChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had to face the reality of achanging world.As noted earlier,McKay intended to alter the direction ofthe church by building strong membership in foreign lands and discourag-ing the concept of “gathering”to North America.Issues of race precededhis 1954 trip to South Africa.If Utah's civil rights record could be traced inpart to LDS church policy,then the religious organization had seriousproblems as it contemplated expanding its influence.Although these issueshave a lengthy history,some of the twentieth century events prior to the1954 court ruling deserve special highlighting.David O.McKay had served as an Apostle since 1907 and as an educator,dealt with generations of young questioning students.He had personallyconfronted the issue of priesthood denial to blacks while in Hawaii in the1920s and obviously felt a bit uncomfortable.According to his journals,McKay recalled his experience in Hawaii:I first met this problem in Hawaii in 1921.A worthy [Black] man had married aPolynesian woman.She was faithful in the Church.They had a large family everyone ofwhom was active and worthy.My sympathies were so aroused that I wrote home toPresident Grant asking if he would please make an exception so we could ordain thatman to the Priesthood.He wrote back saying 'David,I am as sympathetic as you are,but until the Lord gives us a revelation regarding that matter,we shall have to maintainthe policy of the Church.'18One of McKay's real problems was that LDS leadership is based onseniority and age.He and his colleagues were products of their time.Manychurch members were oblivious to a formal policy on race.J.Reuben Clark,McKay's Second Counselor,had a highly distinguishedlegal government and diplomatic career before being named to the FirstPresidency in 1933.Brilliant and dominating,Clark basically ran thechurch during the last few years of Heber J.Grant's administration and thatof George Albert Smith,both of whom suffered from ill health.Clark authorized Salt Lake City church leaders tojoin organizations “whose purpose is torestrict and control Negro settlement.”A yearlater,he discussed with President Smith a proposal to use chapels for LDSmeetings “to prevent Negroes from becoming neighbors.”19Henry D.Moyle,who became McKay's counselor,was on record as trying to per-suade the Department of Defense to halt plans to deploy troops to Tooelebecause “there will be two or three hundred Negro families in this contin-gent.”20Others such as Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold B.Lee had bothwritten and spoken in defense of segregation.Ezra Taft Benson,an apostlewho served as Dwight D.Eisenhower's Secretary of Agriculture,remainedpublicly silent on civil rights,but privately saw the entire movement ascommunist inspired.Finally,another apostle,Mark E.Petersen,told churcheducation employees that,“I think the Lord segregated the Negro and whois man to change that segregation?”21In this type of atmosphere,PresidentMcKay faced a very difficult task.McKay inherited a specific problem that ultimately made the entirenation aware of Utah and LDS attitudes on race.The policy remained anobscure issue for another two decades,until the First Presidency instructedHeber Meeks,President of the Southern States Mission,to investigate theAfrican American waiters in theHotel Utah Sunroom, c. 1940. UTAHSTATEHISTORICALSOCIETY possibility of proselytizing in Cuba.Meeks sought the advice of his friendLowry Nelson,a native of Ferron,Utah who had taught at both BrighamYoung University and Utah State Agricultural College,written an impor-tant study entitled Mormon Village,and who was considered the father ofthe field of rural sociology.Nelson had spent a year studying rural life inCuba right after World War II.Meeks wrote:“I would appreciate youropinion as to the advisability of doing missionary work particularly in therural sections of Cuba,knowing,of course,our concept of the Negro andhis position as [to] the Priesthood.”22Nelson,who had left Utah during theNew Deal,was stunned by the letter and quickly responded.“Your letter isthe first intimation I have had that there was a fixed doctrine on this point.I had always known that certain statements had been made by authoritiesregarding the status of the Negro but I had never assumed that they consti-tuted an irrevocable doctrine.”23Deeply troubled,Nelson wrote to George Albert Smith,church presi-dent,asking for clarification of the policy and adding that:“The many goodfriends of mixed blood through no fault of theirs incidentally -- which Ihave in the Caribbean and who know me to be a Mormon would beshocked indeed if I were to tell them my Church relegated them to aninferior status.”24Lowry Nelson's innocent,but penetrating interrogation,caused the FirstPresidency,including Second Counselor David O.McKay,to respond.Thechurch leaders rationalized the policy as part of “the doctrines that ourbirth into this life and the advantages under which we may be born have arelationship in the life heretofore.”25The letter stated that the policy hadoriginated with Joseph Smith,and labeled it a “doctrine of the Church,never questioned by any of the Church leaders.”Realizing the inaccuracyof calling Smith the originator,Nelson noted,“As much as I was 'stunned'at Heber Meeks' question ...this letter from the First Presidency wasshocking ...There is no doubt in my mind that [J.Reuben Clark] draftedthis letter to me.”26Although just a signatory to the First Presidency letter to Nelson,McKay penned his own thoughts on the subject several months later inresponse to a correspondent.He cited one scriptural precedent for the pol-icy,a single verse in the LDS canon,Book of Abraham,that for him appearedto answer the “who”if not the “why”of the policy,but stated that thecomplete rationale lay in the pre-mortal existence of human spirits.Unlikehis more conservative General Authority colleagues,however,he did not pretend to know the details,and he declinedto invoke either a “less valiant”or a “curse ofCain”explanation.In further departures fromthese colleagues he allowed for the eventualreversal of the practice without restricting itto a post-mortal period and,most significant-ly,he declined to call it a “doctrine.”To himthere was a distinct difference between a “policy”in the church,which hesaw as conditional and thus changeable,and a “doctrine,”which wasimmutable.The distinction was lost on his colleagues,but was crucial in thefinal months of McKay's life.27 Lowry Nelson decided to let the issue drop and he returned to theUniversity of Minnesota.In his memoirs,Nelson recalled how he thrusthimself back into the discussion of Mormonism and race,“in 1952,a friendin Salt Lake City,sent me a clipping from the ChurchSection of the DeseretNewsthat set me off again.The story had to do with two missionaries inSouth Africa who were asked by a woman church member on herdeathbed to do her ‘work’in the Temple when the boys returned to SaltLake.Since she lived in that part of the world,the men had to make surethat her blood was not 'tainted' before they could proceed to gratify herdying wish.”28 As Nelson read how the woman's genealogy revealed that shePEOPLESOFUTAH COLLECTION, UTAHSTATEHISTORICALSOCIETYSina and Wayne Raymond Banks,children of Isaac F. and Sina B.Bankhead Valentine Banks infront of their home on Salt LakeCity’s Goshen Street about 1914. was born in Holland and so her request could be granted.The Church Newsshowed a photograph of the former missionaries and their wives rejoicingand Nelson decided to act.He wrote an article entitled “Mormons and theNegro”and sent it to the Nationmagazine.For the first time,the church'sofficial policy on the priesthood appeared in national print “for the worldto see.”29The African-American press spread the story widely and Nelsonwas chastised by many of his liberal Mormon friends.He wrote that,“I fig-ured there would never be any change in the Negro policy until the factswere widely known and pressure could be brought to bear from without aswell as from within.”30Consequently,when President McKay embarked on his 1954 tour ofthree continents,Europe,Africa and South America,there was no ambigui-ty in his mind as to the purpose for the second leg of his tour.On the longflight from England to South Africa he discussed the matter with his travel-ing secretary.“He said he had that problem to consider,what to do aboutthe present practice in South Africa of not conferring the priesthood.”31Shortly after arriving in South Africa,McKay addressed a special meet-ing that included the mission president,LeRoy H.Duncan and the mis-sionaries.In his remarks he said that,“To observe conditions as they are wasone of the reasons that I wished to take this trip,”and then he immediatelyaddressed the issue of priesthood.“For several years the Coloured questionin South Africa has been called to the attention of the First Presidency.Wehave manuscripts,page after page,written on it.”He then spoke of the gen-esis of the church policy,but in more tentative terms than his predecessors.“Now I think there is an explanation for this racial discrimination,datingback to the pre-existent state.”He spoke tentatively about the permanenceof the policy,saying that it would be followed “until the Lord gives usanother revelation changing this practice.”With significance none of hisaudience could have appreciated,three times during his address he used theword “policy”or “practice”but never the word “doctrine.”32Although hechose to not change the ban,he made a remarkable decision.I am impressed that there are worthy men in the South African Mission who are beingdeprived of the Priesthood simply because they are unable to trace their genealogy outof this country.I am impressed that an injustice is being done to them.Why shouldevery man be required to prove his lineage is free from Negro strain especially whenthere is no evidence of his having Negro blood in his veins? I should rather,muchrather,make a mistake in one case and if it be found out afterwards suspend his activityin the Priesthood than to deprive 10 worthy men of the Priesthood ...And so,if aman is worthy,is faithful in the Church and lives up to the principles of the Gospel,who has no outward evidence of a Negro strain,even though he might not be able to trace his genealogy outof the country,thePresident of the Missionis hereby authorized toconfer upon him thePriesthood.33However,any degreeof black lineage stillmeant no priesthoodwould be conferred.The announcementwas not pre-deter-mined,for two dayslater he sent a letter tohis two counselors inwhich he first inform-ed them of the change.Neither,however,wasit impromptu,for in the letter he explainedto them,“after careful observation and sincereprayer,I felt impressed to modify the presentpolicy.”34The effect on the mission wasimmediate.Shortly after returning to SaltLake City,McKay received a report from thenew mission president:I wish you could have been with me in Johannesburg and Durban when I met withsome of the Brethren and explained that it was possible for them to receive the priest-hood.Tears ran down their cheeks and they were so overcome they could hardly speak.The Brethren were very humble and they expressed their willingness to serve the Lordand magnify the Priesthood.I know that your short visit here was the greatest blessingthat had come to the South African Mission.”35Although Utah papers or perhaps even Utah Mormons knew of hisdecision,the effect of the policy change extended beyond South Africa.Byassuming the absence of Black lineage unless there was proof to the con-trary (“innocent until proven guilty”),McKay established a precedent thathe repeated many times throughout the remainder of his life,and thusopened doors that previously had been shut.In 1957,for example,a wed-ding in one of the LDS temples was in doubt because of an unprovenrumor that the bride had had a Black grandmother.After some investiga-tion of his own to confirm that there was no evidence to substantiate therumor,McKay spoke to an associate who was advocating that the templemarriage proceed,and who later reported the conversation:Prince Albert and his Quartetplaying under a banner welcom-ing returning World War IIsol-diers at the La Conga Club on 61 1/2 East 200 South in Salt LakeCity, November 30, 1945. SHIPLERCOLLECTION, UTAHSTATEHISTORICALSOCIETY President McKay said,“When problems like this come to me I say to myself,SometimeI shall meet my Father-in-Heaven and what will he say?”And I said to him modestly,“He'll forgive you if you err on the side of mercy.”He smiled at that and said,“Butdon't you think it's too late to do something about it?”I said,“no sir.”He said,“Leave itto me.”36As welcome as these cases were and as equally important historically asthey were,they did not address the fundamental basic question of the banon ordination.It appears,however,that McKay's South African trip causedhim,perhaps for the first time as President,to explore the possibility ofabolishing the ban.Upon his return he took two apparently unprecedentedinitiatives.The first occurred only three weeks after his return when he metprivately with Sterling M.McMurrin,who later (1963) wrote a statementon Civil Rights that was read in General Conference.McMurrin wasunder fire from two senior Apostles for his heretical beliefs when McKaycalled him and asked for the meeting in order to determine,firsthand,whatwas occurring.McMurrin was candid in describing his beliefs,one ofwhich was his rejection of “the common Mormon doctrine that theNegroes are under a divine curse.”McKay's response caught him off-guard:He said,“There is not now,and there never has been a doctrine in this Church that theNegroes are under a divine curse.”He insisted that there is no doctrine in the Churchof any kind pertaining to the Negro.“We believe,”he said,“that we have scripturalprecedent for withholding the priesthood from the Negro.It is a practice,not a doctrine,and the practice will some day be changed.And that's all there is to it.”37McMurrin elected not to publicize McKay's response,and McKay didnot share his feelings with even his closest associates in the First Presidencyand Quorum of the Twelve Apostles,a fact that created a crisis in the clos-ing months of McKay's life.Nonetheless,his statement to McMurrin indi-cated that he was approaching the subject of the priesthood ban in a man-ner different than any of his predecessors since Brigham Young.The second initiative,apparently at the same time as the McMurrinepisode,involved a direct frontal challenge to the policy.Leonard J.Arrington,who later became Church Historian,described it:A special committee of the Twelve appointed by President McKay in 1954 to study theissue concluded that there was no sound scriptural basis for the policy but that thechurch membership was not prepared for its reversal ....Personally,I knew somethingabout the apostolic study because I heard Adam S.Bennion,who was a member of thecommittee,refer to the work in an informal talk he made to the Mormon Seminar inSalt Lake City on May 13,1954.McKay,Bennion said,had pled with the Lord withoutresult and finally concluded the time was not yet ripe.38 Three things are significant aboutArrington's account.First,as he had toldMcMurrin,McKay saw the issue as change-able policy rather than immutable doctrine.Second,as he had stated inSouth Africa,even though it was a policy that was changeable,it wouldrequire a revelation from the Lord to change it.He did not make it clearwhy he felt a revelation was necessary,that is,whether it was because thepolicy had been instituted by the Lord in the first place,or whether chang-ing a man-made policy that had become so firmly entrenched wouldrequire the force of revelation to convince church members that it neededto be changed.And finally,apparently for the first time,he took the matterdirectly to the “Source.”It was not the last time that he did so,and notalways did he achieve the same result.So,indeed,1954 was a year of deci-sion for the LDS church,the state of Utah,and the United States.However,the impact on the state and the church were a long time coming.There were winds of potential change within the state and within theLDS church at the time of the Court decision,but no one seemed to real-ize that desegregated schools was only a first step toward a national civilrights movement.The immediate educational response to the court decision was very pos-itive.Utah educators applauded the decision.Dr.Allen Bateman,StateSuperintendent of Public Instruction stated:“The decision is fundamentallyright.If we hope to maintain our position of leadership in the world todaywith the peoples of other races and nationalities,we must do everythingpossible to show that we are actually practicing equal treatment of all The Esquire Club, ca. 1946, at theWhite City Ballroom, Ogden. PEOPLESOFUTAHCOLLECTION, UTAHSTATEHISTORICALSOCIETY peoples within our country.”39Superintendents from Salt Lake,Davis,Murray,and Granite school districts basically said that they had no problemwith the decision and their districts already complied.The Salt Lake Tribuneeditorialized that patient gradualism could lead to a strengthened U.S.posi-tion in the world,but also said that since the court had moved in thisdirection for nearly a decade,everyone should be prepared.The DeseretNewsdid not editorialize on the decision and only carried AP or UP sto-ries of the national reaction to the Brown announcement.In reality,Utah did not change any of its laws simply because of Brown v.Board of Education,although the Supreme Court ruled that segregated trans-portation,restaurants,and hotels were illegal based on interstate commerceand the Fourteenth Amendment.The Civil Rights Acts of 1964 actuallybrought about changes in the marriage laws and potential enforcement ofdesegregation as a violation of federal law.Fourteen years later,in 1978,theLDS church finally abandoned the policy of denying the priesthood toAfricans or African-Americans.The church's position had hampered thestate as it attempted to stay current with the nation.Utah's schools wereaffected in many ways.More and more minority graduates attended collegeand received degrees.In Utah,fifty years after Brown,there are numerousblack school administrators,teachers,and other employees.The neighbor-hoods in Utah are diverse and multi-cultural.The large influx of Hispanics,Pacific Islanders,and other refugees have all benefitted from the Browndecision.40Brown v.Board of Educationwas a major turning point inAmerican history,and started the state,the nation,and the LDS church ona long,difficult path of fulfilling the dream of a nation of legal equality,anda church void of racial discrimination. 1 For a political biography of one of Utah's most colorful politicians,see Dennis Lythgoe,Let 'emHoller:The Political Biography of J.Bracken Lee.(Salt Lake City:Utah State Historical Society,1982).Lee wit-nessed first hand racism and intolerance in his hometown of Price,Utah,where the Ku Klux Klan wasactive in the 1920s and where,in June 1925,an itinerant black miner was lynched by a frenzied mob.
2 Salt Lake Tribune,January 10,1954.
3 Ronald G.Coleman,"Blacks in Utah History:An Unknown Legacy,"in Helen Z.Papanikolas,ed.,The Peoples of Utah(Salt Lake City:Utah Historical Society,1976),136.Willis Hansen,long-time managerof the Newhouse Hotel recalled in 1982 of Duke Ellington's attempted stay at the Newhouse Hotel."Ohthere was Duke Ellington,too.He was the first Black to stay there.That was when Blacks weren't allowed.They sneaked him in,but the management found out and asked him to leave."Deseret News,February 2,1982.
4 A.Hamer Reiser,interviewed by William G.Hartley,October 16,1974,The Church of Jesus Christof Latter-day Saints Historical Department and Archives.Hereafter cited as LDS Archives.
5 Richard Kloger,Simple Justice(New York:Knopf,1976).Salt Lake City local realtor Sheldon Brewsterin 1939 presented a petition of one thousand names to the Salt Lake City Commission asking that thecommission pass an ordinance restricting blacks to a particular area of Salt Lake City.The commissionrefused.Brewster also tried to persuade blacks to live in a certain area but again,he failed.See Thomas G.Alexander and James Allen,Mormons and Gentiles:A History of Salt Lake City(Boulder,Colorado:PruettPublishing Company,1984),263,and Ronald G.Coleman,"Blacks in Utah History,"136-37.
6 It is interesting to note that Weber College,Utah State University,and the University of Utah allreached national prominence by the late 1950s and early 1960s in part because of African-American ath-letes.Although there was some serious resentment expressed by alumni and townspeople,the success ofthe teams put Utah in a positive national picture.Weber won the Junior College National Championshipin 1959,USU and Utah were both ranked in the top ten in 1960.Allen Holmes,Billy McGill,CornellGreen,Tyler Wilbon and Harold Theus all from Arizona or California were recruited to the state.
7 Richard Kluger,Simple Justice(New York:Knopf,1976).See also Jack Greenberg,Crusaders in theCourts (New York:Basic Books,1954).
8 Wallace R.Bennett,"Negro in Utah,"Utah Law Review(1953):340-48.The first branch of theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Utah was organized in 1919,RonaldColeman,"Blacks in Utah History,"139.For the hiring of Ruby Price,see Salt Lake Tribune,March 27, 1994.Price was later named Utah Mother of the Year in 1977 and in 1989 was chairwoman of the DavisCounty Republican Party.
9 "Report of Senate Committee to Investigate Discrimination Against Minorities in Utah,"UtahSenate Journal(1947),67.
10 Bennett,"Negro in Utah,"348,fn.,15 & 17.See also Journal of the Senate of the State of Utah,Twenty-sixth Session of the Legislature of the State of Utah,1945,various pages;Journal of the Senate,Twenty-seventhSession of the Legislature of the State of Utah,1947,various pages;Journal of the Senate,Twenty-eighth Session ofthe Legislature of the State of Utah,1949,various pages;Journal of the Senate,Thirtieth Session of the Legislatureof the State of Utah,1953,various pages.
11 Gaddis Investment Company v.Morrison,3 Utah 2d Reports (December 21,1954).
12 Ogden Standard-Examiner,October 16,1952.Federal judge Willis W.Ritter dismissed the case whenhe determined that there had been no violation of the plaintiffs constitutional rights.
13 Robert Freed,Lagoon Photograph Collection,USU Special Collections and Archives.
14 Quoted in Jo Ann Freed Chavré,The Bob Book:A Collective Memory of Robert E.Freed(n.p.,1999),89.Freed also served on the Utah Sate Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on CivilRights.
15 Lester E.Bush,Compilation on the Negro in Mormonism(n.p.,1973),262.
16 Harmon O.Cole,"Status of the Negro in Utah,"Symposium on the Negro in Utah,Utah Academyof Sciences,Arts,and Letters,copy in Special Collections,Utah State University Library.
17 Wallace R.Bennett,"The Legal Status of the Negro in Utah,"Symposium on the Negro in Utah,Utah Academy of Sciences,Arts,and Letters,copy in Special Collections,Utah State University Library.This Wallace Bennett should not be confused with Senator Wallace F.Bennett who was the RepublicanSenator from Utah from 1951-1975.Wallace R.Bennett was a practicing Salt Lake City attorney and latertaught law at the University of Utah.In 1965 he was a member of the Utah State Advisory Committee tothe United States Commission on Civil Rights.
18 "Minutes of a Special Meeting by President David O.McKay,17th January 1954,"in David O.McKay Diaries,January 19,1954,Special Collections,Marriott Library,University of Utah.The author isindebted to Gregory Prince whose forthcoming biography of David O.McKay includes an entire chapteron Civil Rights,which Prince shared with this author.
19 D.Michael Quinn,Elder Statesman:A Biography of J.Reuben Clark(Salt Lake City:Signature Books,2002),344,339-59.
20 McKay Diaries,June 22,1961.
21 Mark E.Petersen,"Race Problems - As they Affect the Church,"August 27,1954,in Lester E.Bush,Compilation on the Negro in Mormonism,260-61.
22 Heber Meeks to Lowry Nelson,June 1947,in Lowry Nelson,In the Direction of His Dreams:Memoirs(New York:Philosophical Library,1985),335.
23 Lowry Nelson to Heber Meeks,June 26,1947,Ibid.
24 Lowry Nelson to George Albert Smith,June 26,1947,Ibid.
25 Fist Presidency (George Albert Smith,J.Reuben Clark,Jr.and David O.McKay) to Lowry Nelson,July 17,1947,Ibid.26Nelson,In the Direction of His Dreams,335.
27 Gregory Prince's forthcoming biography of David O.McKay the chapter on Civil Rights.
28 Nelson,In the Direction of His Dreams,340.
29 Lowry Nelson,"Mormons and the Negro,"The Nation,May 18,1952.
30 Nelson,In the Direction of His Dreams,350.
31 A.Hamer Reiser,interviewed by William G.Hartley,October 16,1974,LDS Archives.
32 "Minutes of a Special Meeting by President David O.McKay,17th January,1954",in David O.McKay Diaries,January 19,1954.
33 Ibid.
34 David O.McKay to Stephen L.Richards and J.Reuben Clark,Jr.,January 19,1954,in David O.McKay Diaries of the same date.
35 LeRoy H.Duncan to David O.McKay,February 23,1954,David O.McKay Scrapbook #137,Special Collections,Marriott Library,University of Utah.
36 Lowell Bennion,interviewed by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher,March 9,1985,LDS Archives,Ms 200730.
37 Sterling M.McMurrin affidavit,March 6,1979,italics added.Photocopy in author's possession.Themeeting took place on March 14,1954.
38 Leonard J.Arrington,Adventures of a Church Historian(Urbana and Chicago:University of IllinoisPress,1998),183.
39 Salt Lake Tribune,May 18,1954.
40 See F.Ross Peterson,A History of Cache Valley(Salt Lake City and Logan:Utah State HistoricalSociety and Cache County Council,1997),342.
Facing the Color Line: Race & Ethnicity in Cache Valley
