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Show i I a i h r ti- its It ; LOS apostle reviews decade since Blacks An apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said last week the 1978 revelation resulting in the granting of the priesthood to black members of the Church was essential to the "fulfillment of the divine command com-mand that the gospel (of Jesus Christ) must go to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people." Keynoting Brigham Young University's Afro-American Symposium, Sym-posium, Elder Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the Council of Twelve Apostles, reviewed the reaction of leaders and members of the Church to the public announcement on June 9, 1978, and told of growth among the blacks during the ensuing decade. "For most adult Latter-day Saints," he said, "the revelation on the priesthood ten years ago was an event of such magnitude that it is also etched in memory." He noted that he was president of Brigham Young University at the time and was working work-ing with two of his sons on a mountain cabin they had built when he was informed in-formed through a telephone call from Black Mormons tell histories At the recent LDS Afro-American Symposoium held at the Redd Center in the de Jong Concert Hall at Brigham Young University, nine black Latter-day Saint members presented oral histories. Among those interviewed was Alan Cherry who came to BYU 20 years ago as a new convert to the LDS Church. Part of his reason for moving mov-ing from his native New York was to continue what he calls his "search for truth." As he became aware of black . Mormons in the early days of the " ; 'church, he found that the people were drawn more as caricatures than as "'true historical figures. Since 1985, as director of the LDS Afro-American Oral History Project for the Charles Redd Center at BYU, " Cherry has interviewed 225 people from throughout the United States ' and has increased the store of knowledge about black Latter-day Saints. Throughout the day at the sym- posium, participants examined the ' extensive integration and cultural communication Afro-Americans are experiencing in the LDS Church. The symposium date marked the 10th anniversary an-niversary of the extension of the priesthood by the LDS Church to blacks worldwide. "I wrote the book 'It's You and Me Lord' in 1970 and became aware in the process that much information ' about blacks is based on policies, opi-: opi-: nions, interpretations, even folklore," says Cherry. "None of this is a '' substitute for what individuals think or for the experiences they have had. ' Obviously something is lost. "It is wrong to try to surmise what early black Mormons thought, for example, because we can't 1 discover from what little knowledge we have what they might have done or how they might have lived." To avert that problem today, the Redd Center's objective in the oral history project was to hear from black members of the LDS Church and to let their histories speak for themselves rather than be interpreted by scholars. "We developed an open-question format with an emphasis on their lives as individuals that would include cultural experiences, but not with an exclusive focus on black relations with white," he explains. "All too Olympia Compact S Printer ready with interface Correction memory Delux full feature Regular $495.00 SALE I Oifd& granted priesthood blessing a Church apostle. "As I told my sons what had happened, I cried for joy," he said. Elder Oaks quoted the late President Presi-dent Spencer W. Kimball, the prophet through whom the revelation came: "We had. the glorious experience of having the Lord indicate clearly that the time had come when all worthy wor-thy men and women everywhere can be fellow heirs and partakers of the full blessings of the gospel... The Lord made it very clear to me what was to be done. We do not expect the people of the world to understand such things, for they will always be quick to assign their own reasons or to discount the divine process of revelation." Elder Oaks said the reaction of the black members of the Church was one of "dignity and joy." "For them," he said, "the significance of the revelation was that it opened a door long closed." With few exceptions, the other members of the Church accepted the revelation instantly, and acted upon often, the problem with using blacks as an American topic is that we study their complaints, their ill treatment or their futures at the expense of examining ex-amining them as individuals." Cherry wanted to avoid placing them in a "minority category" because, he says, "The problem with the word 'minority' is the root word 'minor.' It seems to make a qualitative statement that implies minority means something less rather than something different." Included in the histories are impressions im-pressions of childhood, family relationships rela-tionships and early religious experiences. "I remember clearly one person who came to the United States from Jamaica when she was 11 and had to learn to like peanut butter because peanut butter is an American food," Cherry says. "She also had to learn to be black. The significant thing here is that blackness is not inherited, It's not everyone's conditioning. Yet many of us are treated as if we were homogenous-the myth is that you can make the same assumptions about a black from Jamaica as one from New York or one from 'darkest Africa.' You, know, the sun shines just as brightly there as anywhere in the globe." One of his interview subjects from Georgia told of a childhood in which he didn't experience much racial prejudice. "One might assume, without such information, that if someone is black and. from the South, then he must have encountered prejudice," says Cherry. "One might also assume that one negative experience-even one tremendously negative experience-might experience-might color a person's entire life, but that wasn't true, according to the histories. One man talked about the dramatic impact in his life when his father was murdered by white police officers in Oklahoma. Yet he didn't feel great lingering animosity about whites. It was an unahppy episode in his life, but it was an episode, not the basis for his entire way of thinking." While the interviews neither encourage en-courage nor discouraged testimonies of faith, nearly all left a religious signature. "Many realized there could be many black non-members who would encounter these interviews and gain a better impression of blacks and the ,0 324 West Cente; Provo it in good faith, he said, pointing out that the apostle who informed him of the revelation, Elder Boyd K. Packer, ordained a good black friend, Ruffin Bridgeforth, to the priesthood. In the months that followed the announcement, black members were called as missionaries and as officers and teachers in various Church organizations, Elder Oaks said. "Soon, black priesthood leaders began to appear in the ranks of bishops, stake presidents, and mission mis-sion presidents." The revelation on the priesthood "was followed almost immediately by enlarged missionary activity among our black brothers and sisters," he said, pointing out that "the most significant initial enlargement was in Brazil, where we were already established, and in the Caribbean islands..." During the year following the revelation, he said, missionary work began in the west African nations of Nigeria and Ghana. gospel, or maybe clarify misconceptions misconcep-tions and myths," he said. "I didn't want a slanted story based on my personal per-sonal account or on a handful of people, peo-ple, and these histories give a better, broader overview." Cherry also sees a big gap in a history that excludes blacks. "The white American is constantly constant-ly stripped of information about blacks, either accidentally, incidentally inciden-tally or deliberately, beginning with grade school history experiences. One of the first men to die in the Boston Massacre in our Revolutionary War, for example, was black, but we don't hear about him. Or, think of our popular culture. Western films neglect the fact that there were many black cowboys, probably because blacks were not considered generic enough. ' 'But when society eliminates the diversity of who we all are, then it makes one segment appear so important impor-tant that it defines values for everyone else." SIlllIF "WKSm if . , mm III? X v. :.s . I rj It 1 I Silk UNIVERSITYHOSPITAL- The answer to Nicodemus' question ques-tion may still be "no," but the University Hospital Newborn Intensive Inten-sive Care Unit must surely be the next best thing, saving the lives of preemies born as much as four months early. And it is just one miracle center It is not possible to precisely determine how many black members are in the Church, Elder Oaks said, "because the Church does not keep . any satisfies on the ethnic ancestry or racial composition of its members." But he added that while overall Church membership grew 62 percent during the past ten years, membership member-ship in the black nations of Africa grew from 136 to 14,347, primarily in West Africa, and in the Caribbean islands other than Puerto Rico, Latter-day Saint membership grew from 836 to 18,614. Despite the impressive growth in Africa and the Caribbean, Elder Oaks said that "the greatest number of members of African ancestry in the Church today are in our wards and branches in Brazil," where membership member-ship has grown from 51,000 ten years ago to 250,000. He said the growth of the Church in west Africa is "deliberately b cautious so that we can train local leaders to preside over and direct the activities of the Church in the cities and villages." He mentioned the organization of a stake three weeks ago in Nigeria, the first stake in the Church where all of the members and all of the leaders are black. "The quality of the leaders and members in West Africa promises significant growth in the. years ahead," he said. As for the United States, "I cannot can-not estimate how many, but I know that we have wards in various urban centers and branches in other places whose membership includes many black brothers and sisters." Concluding his message, Elder Oaks said, "The doors of more and more nations are being opened to the preaching of the gospel Even before our missionary capacity is fully ready, the opportunity beckons, and we see the certain fulfillment of the prophecy of Jospeh Smith (first prophet pro-phet and president of the Church) that 'the truth of God will go forth boldly, .nobly, and independent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear. . .'" among many in this Salt Lake hospital of international reputation. University Hospital is also a very important Utah business, with 2,200 employees and an annual operating budget of $ 120 mil-" . lion. We are proud to contribute to this great hospital's success by providing a Orem-Geneva Timea Wednesday June 15, 1988 Page 6 New president for Korea LDS Temple Spencer J. Palmer, Provo, professor pro-fessor of comparative world religions at Brigham Young University, has been called by the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to serve as president presi-dent of the Seoul Korea Temple. President Palmer will succeed Robert H. Slover in the assignment, which involves the supervision of the staff and operations of the temple, which is one of 41 operating Latter-day Latter-day Saint temples in the world. ' . Shirley Hadley Palmer, the temple tem-ple president's wife, will serve as matron of the temple, the First Presidency said. President Palmer is a native of , Eden, Arizona. After graduating from BYU in the early 1950's, he served as a UJS. Army chaplain in Japan and Korea for two years. He later earned a masters degree in Asian studies and a doctorate in history from the University of California at Berkeley. The new temple president has sorved on the BYU religious educa Stamp notes century of LDS presence in Samoa Apia, Western Somoa A new Sa-moan Sa-moan postage stamp has been issued commemorating the arrival of the first missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a century ago. The Apia Samoa Temple of the Church is depicted on the stamp, and a souvenir sheet issued with it depicts the S3 stamp together with a map showing the Western Samoan islands of Savai'i, Upolu and Tutuila, and a scriptural quotation from the Book of Mormon-Another Testament of Jesus Christ: "Great are the promises of Orem Community MayS Boy to Ron and Cheryl Zacharias Boy to David and Terri Simmons May6 Boy to John and Teresa Allen May 8 Girl to Don and Jane Stein agel May 9 Boy to Mark and Peggy Philbrick May 10 Girl to Ronnie and Bernadette Johansen May 12 Boy to George and Amy Anderton May 13 Girl to Dennis and Nancy Varney May 14 Girl to John and Ellen Larson dependable supply of electricity for its diagnostic, healing, and life-sustaining life-sustaining equipment. We have the power to make things happen. tion faculty since 1962. He was one of the founders of the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies at the university. In 1985 he was the recipient reci-pient of the Order of Cultural Merit from the government of South Korea. He is the author or editor of eleven books dealing with religious, cultural and historical topics. In the Church, President Palmer has served as a mission president, , bishop, stake president's counselor, stake high councilor, regional representative and Primary children's child-ren's teacher. Mrs. Palmer is a native of American Falls, Idaho, and an education educa-tion graduate of BYU. She has taught in the public schools of Whittier, California, and has served the Church as an officer and teacher in the Relief women's organization, the Young Women auxiliary and the Primary children's organization. She is a genealogist, family historian and author of a family history published during the past year. the Lord unto them who are upon the isles of the sea." - 2 Nephi 10:21. The Samoan Mission of the Church was organized June 17, 1988, with Joseph H. Dean as president. While there is still a mission operating today, with headquarters in Apia, there are also nine stakes and some 35,000 members of the Church in Western Samoa and two stakes and 6,000 members in American Samoa. The Apia Temple was dedicated in 1983 by President Gordon B. Hin-. ckley of the First Presidency of the Church. Hospital births May 16 Boy to John and Cindy Norton Boy to Marcos and Mercedes Arellano Boy to Don and Diane VanDyke May 18 Girl to Jeffery and Ann Horan May 20 Girl to Steven and Lucas Largin May 21 Boy to Ryan Sr. and Patricia Merkley May 24 Boy to David and Joan Washburn May 25 Boy to Richard and Lorel Winsor May 26 Girl to Viliami and Janet Fotu lIllIB IS i m (in UaUGHTCOf.VANY PPIIIP Wt Strvice What We S' |