Marginal Mormons: African Americans and Native Americans in the Nineteenth-Century Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

“…because understanding how race “works” in churches is crucial for dismantling barriers dividing Christians of different racial/ethnic backgrounds. ”

Team Members/Contributors

Quincy D. Newell Hamilton College Contact Me

About this sabbatical grant for researchers

In Marginal Mormons: African Americans and Native Americans in the Nineteenth-Century Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I explore the intersection of nineteenth-century racial and religious identities by examining the experiences of the two largest non-white groups in the nineteenth-century Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS, or Mormon, Church). African Americans and Native Americans held very different places in Mormon belief: black people were believed to bear the curse of Cain, and were therefore excluded from the church’s most important rituals, while Native Americans were thought to be descended from ancient Israelites and therefore esteemed as potential converts. As the church worked to link Mormonism and whiteness in the nineteenth century, I analyze how Native Americans and African Americans constructed, performed, and experienced Mormon identities that were non-white, and use an intersectional analysis to reveal the ways in which gender, race, and religion mutually constituted one another in the lives of these marginalized Mormons.