Today we remember Mary Willson even though we know very little about her. The only surviving source to name her and describe her as a “colored woman” is a list of rebaptisms performed in Nashville, Lee County, Iowa. 1/7

Even though Mary Bowdidge Berry Smith was a white woman, she nonetheless ran afoul of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ racial policies. LDS leaders barred Mary from receiving the crowning rituals of her faith because she had married a Black man & had children with him.

Ethel Irene Wells Burdette and her husband William were two of three Black converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, baptized on the same day in 1914 in Chester County, Pennsylvania where William worked in the coal mines. 1/5

Alex James Brooks grew to adulthood in southwestern Georgia during federal Reconstruction when southern Black people enjoyed some of the rights promised in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, including citizenship and Black male voting rights. 1/4

Major Dorimus Church's mother was formerly enslaved to his father. Born in Tennessee in 1869, in the aftermath of the Civil War, he and his mother and his siblings were listed in the 1870 census as Black. 1/6

John & Laura Thorpe Fuller were both likely born into slavery in Granville County, North Carolina, before the Civil War began. After slavery was abolished, John worked on his father's farm from a young age & continued to do so well into adulthood, likely cultivating tobacco. 1/7

Lorah Jane Bowdidge Berry Barton’s life history illustrates the ramifications of the one-drop racial temple & priesthood ban that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints enforced on members who appeared to be white, but who actually had limited Black African ancestry. 1/5

Sylvester James, along with his mother Jane Manning James, his half-brother Silas, and step father Isaac James, was an 1847 pioneer into the Salt Lake Valley. He labored to establish a new settlement in the valley and with his family worked in Brigham Young's household. 1/6

A new painting at LDS Church History Library by Casey Lynn Childs depicts a singular day in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On September 3, 1875, 8 African American Latter-day Saints attended the Endowment House to perform proxy baptisms for deceased friends & family.

Albert Webb had a short-lived membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Only a couple of weeks after his baptism in 1872 in Tennessee, he returned to his previous religion, the Disciples of Christ. 1/4

The Salt Lake Tribune Mormon Land podcast interviewed Professors Jenny Pulsipher and Paul Reeve about the new Century of Black Mormons bio of James Brown Jr., a captain in the Mormon Battalion and founder of Ogden, Utah. A link to the Mormon Land interview follows.

One public historian who wrote about Susannah Lucretia Tanner Christensen Stevens for a Las Vegas history project suggested that her long life embodied “much of western history.” 1/4

John Stewart Knight was beset by opposition for most of his life. As a mixed-race man & suspected homosexual, he faced considerable challenges. 1/3

Without an 1853 journal entry from Texas and an 1857 entry in Latter-day Saint records in Utah, an enslaved woman named Louisa may have been lost to history. These two sources offer an intriguing glimpse into her life and her epic westward journey. 1/2

47 years ago today the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reintegrated its priesthood and temples and restored the Church to its universal roots. Today we remember some of those who slipped past the walls of exclusion to receive priesthood ordination or temple rituals before June 1978. 1/12

William Franklin Church was the first son born to his formerly enslaved mother following her emancipation at the end of the Civil War. Census records identified him as Black in Tennessee and white in Utah. 1/4

When Mary Church was born in 1863 in TN, her father was her enslaver. At age 16, she received LDS temple rituals & served as proxy when her father was vicariously sealed to his deceased first wife.

Meet Mary here & learn the rest of her remarkable story: exhibits.lib.utah.edu/s/century-of...

When Alwilda Jackson married George Jett she was 19 & George was 35. It was a 2nd marriage for both but one that lasted. Jett was a pioneering Black Latter-day Saint in KY & he must have shared his faith with Alwilda who also joined.

Meet Alwilda here: exhibits.lib.utah.edu/s/century-of...

John Taylor Church’s mother was formerly enslaved to his father before the family moved to Utah Territory in 1878. Early in life John was promised priesthood ordination in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but was subsequently denied over questions about his racial ancestry.