A new book on the subject, already in its third printing, peels back decades of accreted myths and half-truths.

Written By Alice Faulkner Burch

Upon first encountering this book, I did not like the title. By the time I ended the first chapter, however, I understood how fitting it was. In Second-Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality, Matthew Harris takes us on a journey to show how Black Americans and others of the Black African diaspora were made second-class saints, brothers, and sisters within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We journey through previously unexamined documents, minutes from general authority meetings, and accounts of early leaders’ actions, revealing how a knot1 was tautly tied that would require decades of waiting and researching to undo.

The thrust of the entire book is captured in the cover design: a game of chess in which all of the white pieces block the stained glass window of a temple—apparently preventing the black piece from peering into the building—while the lone black piece holds its position. Centered in the stained glass is a beehive. Something seems to say that the lone black piece does not belong in the beehive, synonymous with Zion. What’s more, the black chess piece is a pawn, the least powerful piece on the board. Although the pawn can be promoted if it is located directly behind an opponent, this pawn is not, signifying that it cannot be promoted. The black piece is blocked, has nowhere to go, and cannot be promoted! This is a brilliant piece of artwork by James R. Perales that must be read and considered as the first page of the book, not overlooked or dismissed as a mere cover photo.

Using a multitude of references to create a solid documentary foundation, Harris outlines how German, Dutch, French, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, and Japanese immigrants were adopted into the construct of whiteness and made racists while simultaneously cementing people of the Black African diaspora as second-class saints.

He guides us through an easy-to-follow lesson on the racial construct of the time (mid-1800s on) and shares how a book by Brigham Young’s daughter Susa Young Gates played a crucial pivotal role. I was not previously aware of this book.