Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness

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by Quinn Rollins:

For a different audience, I would start this review with the disclaimer that I’m a Mormon. Here, that’s probably assumed, so I’ll say that I’m also a history teacher, and I think that the history of “my people” as a religion, as a culture, and as builders of a secular “kingdom” in the Western United States in the 19th Century is one of the most interesting and compelling stories in American history. Even then, I’ve never considered the story of the Mormons to be that of an entirely different race.

In Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness, W. Paul Reeve, Associate Professor of History at the University of Utah, makes the claim that Mormons were indeed seen as a different race by 19th Century Americans, and that this idea shaped interactions between Mormons and “Gentiles” for the better part of a century. This racialization contributed to the Mormons being forced from homes in Missouri and Illinois, and was part of the impetus for their settling of the Great Basin—pretty much as far away as they could get from other (protestant, white) Americans.

This racializing of the Mormons is particularly odd considering the current notion that all Mormons are as white (or fake-tan) as Mitt Romney, or as bland and white bread as my own family ancestry, mostly English, Danish and Scottish. I’m super super white. Pasty, even. But by 19th Century standards, I’d be considered a separate race…which at the time would also mean that I had limited rights. Reeve points to an arc in Mormondom that starts with Mormons being considered as white (as “normal”) as other Americans, but then becoming more and more conflated with various races and traditions, and being forced to prove their whiteness. The principles of plural marriage were seen as coming from the orient, the scriptural references to Lamanites and the future redemption of Native Americans clearly anti-American, and the early ordination of (admittedly only few) blacks to the priesthood an admission that they were equal (or nearly so) to whites. All of these became problems for members of the church, and their “whiteness” got called into question.

This racialization goes beyond skin color and into outright deformity, including claims that Mormons had tails and horns. As Mormons were forced to prove their whiteness—their equality--with other Americans, they seemed to overshoot the mark, denying rights to African Americans, moving away from perceived alliances with Native Americans, and other races. By the 1950s, they were finally considered as white as other Americans…but by that point, the cultural tides of mainstream Americans were turning. The Civil Rights Movement was in full swing, and within a few decades, the Mormons’ denial of priesthood rites to blacks was seen as racist as their own treatment had been a century before.

Book Review: On Zion's Mount

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by Quinn Rollins:

As a history teacher and a Mormon and a voracious reader, I love discovering new books that overlay religion and tradition and history. Even when the “new book” came out in 2008. One of my favorite history professors recommended a book in passing: Jared Farmer's book On Zion's Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape. The professor was using his book as an example of how our views of geography change according to our own perspectives and needs, even when the land itself doesn't. As a longtime resident of Utah and a history teacher myself, I was interested in the subject and checked the book out.



What I found was a fascinating look at how we create the landscape around us, based on our culture, philosophy, and needs. It's also about how legends are created and passed on from generation to generation, including some that I had heard growing up, and even passed on to my own sons. The book is focused on the Utah Valley—the valley just to the south of my home in Salt Lake City—where the city of Provo and the Mormon Church-owned Brigham Young University is located. Utah Valley was historically the home of bands of Ute Indians, who used the ample fishing grounds of Utah Lake and the Provo River to build up their food supplies. The valley was visited in 1776 by Fathers Dominguez and Escalante, who were trying to find a convenient route from Santa Fe to Monterrey, and is described as a an oasis in the desert of the Great Basin by Farmer.

The focus of the Indians, of the Mountain Men, and of the early Mormon settlers in the 1840s, was always on Utah Lake. For food, for the streams that fed into it (which could be diverted for irrigation), for the center of civilization. Despite that focus, Brigham Young (president of the Mormon Church, and first territorial governor) didn't want his people to settle in Utah Valley, fearing it would provoke violence with the Utes. Not all of Brigham's flock were sheep however, and soon enough there were Mormons settling along the shores of Utah Lake, and a war erupted between the Utes and the trespassers. All of this is set up in the first section of On Zion's Mount, Liquid Antecedents. As I read, I was struck by the similar focus on water and the valley that Lehi gives us in 1 Nephi Chapter 2: "And it came to pass that he called the name of the river, Laman, and it emptied into the Red Sea; and the valley was in the borders near the mouth thereof. And when my father saw that the waters of the river emptied into the fountain of the Red Sea, he spake unto Laman, saying: O that thou mightest be like unto this river, continually running into the fountain of all righteousness! And he also spake unto Lemuel: O that thou mightest be like unto this valley, firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord!" It’s a different way of thinking about landforms than we typically do, and Farmer carries us forward. 


MoTab Muppets Christmas Concert

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by Quinn Rollins:

I haven't ever been to a Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert. In between my dislike of crowds and the feeling that I get about ten hours of choiring every April and October (I know the choir doesn't sing at every General Conference session, but some kind of choir does), I feel like get my fill. I've heard good things about them, but choir music just isn't my thing, man. I've heard good things about their Christmas concerts, but I figure I'll let someone else take those tickets who really wants to go.

This fall when they announced the guest performers for the 2014 Christmas concert, I knew that would change. Because it was my people. Friends I had grown up with, who I looked up to, personal heroes and co-conspirators and teachers. The Sesame Street Muppets. A guy named Santino Fontana was on the bill too, but you throw in nine of the most famous characters in television history, and they're going to take over the show. So I started plotting.