Mormons and Blacks

[Doug Laycock]

        It would be quite unfair to infer from the pre-1978 history of
Mormon teaching on race that Mormons today remain more retrograde on race
than any other group in the society.  My impression is that the opposite is
true -- that the practice of sending out missionaries has led to enormous
growth in the Third World and produced one of the most ethnically diverse
organizations around.  As of a few years ago, when I visited a former
student in Salt Lake City, his state representative in the Utah legislature
was a Samoan who had come to Utah to work in the church headquarters,
stayed, and eventually gone into Utah politics.

        Mormons on the list know much more about the facts and figures than
I do, but they may have feared that sharing these facts would sound
defensive.  So I share the little that I know.


Douglas Laycock
University of Texas Law School
727 E. Dean Keeton St.
Austin, TX  78705
        512-471-3275 (voice)
        512-471-6988 (fax)
        dlaycock at mail.law.utexas.edu