Debut of “Nobody Knows” A Success

I unfortunately dropped the ball and missed the debut of “Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons” today at the Utah Film Festival (I thought it was yesterday). However, I did email Margaret Young to ask how it was received, and she responded that “We got a prolonged standing ovation. It was extremely gratifying.” Now I wish that I had been there even more. The documentary next heads to the San Diego Black Film Festival. I agree with Margaret that “It’ll be interesting to see how an African American, non-LDS crowd responds.”

Margaret also indicated that they do plan to show the film one or two more times in Utah, but no dates are set. I’ll be sure not to miss the next one. I believe that this is an important project, and I therefore encourage all JI readers to donate something to support the film. I’m a poor graduate student, and if I can donate, anyone can. 

“A True and Perfect System of Civil and Religious Government, Revealed from on High.”

In the fall and winter of 1843, Parley P. Pratt wrote a small pamphlet entitled “The Angel of the Prairies,” a work that was similar to his “One Hundred Years Hence. 1945.”“The Angel of the Prairies” purports to be based on a dream in which Pratt is transported one hundred years into the future, where an angel shows him that the U.S. government was destroyed from corruption within (shades of Book of Mormon stories of Gadianton Robbers), and the “sons of noble sires” had erected an empire of liberty in the American West. The angel also showed Pratt a thin volume entitled “A true and perfect system of Civil

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“As if we had been some savage tribe”: Parley P. Pratt on Mormon Identity

Writing, it was once said, is an instrument of power. Abolitionists used novels to combat slavery, as did anti-polygamy crusaders. Writers have tremendous power to shape images, whether of perceived dangers, or of past wrongs that need to be made right. As Yale theologian Miroslav Volf argues, “to remember a wrongdoing is to struggle against it.”[1] For the Latter-day Saints after the expulsion of 1838 writing was one of the few ways that they could fight back against the Missouri vigilantes and government officials that had expelled the Saints from the state.[2] Parley P. Pratt was keenly aware of the power of writing to shape how the American public understood what had happened in Missouri. While in prison

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“Mormons condemned ‘the world’ and yet craved its praise”: Mormons in Higher Education

In 1868 Brigham Young approached nineteen-year old Franklin S. Richards to give him some advice, if it can be called that. Young told Richards that he needed to study to be a lawyer. Richards, surprised, replied that he had always heard Brother Brigham speak ill of attorneys, and that he [Richards] intended to be a doctor. Young informed Richards that he needed to be a lawyer ?because the time will come when the Latter-day Saints will need lawyers of their own to defend them in the Courts and strive with fearless inspiration to maintain their constitutional rights.? Richards, the son of Apostle Franklin D. Richards, obeyed Young, became a successful attorney and represented the Church’s leaders before the U.S. Supreme Court several times during the polygamy raids.

When my father told me this story several years ago (Richards is an ancestor), I was intrigued not

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Reflections. In Prison, April, 1839.

We often hear about Joseph Smith’s sojourn in a Missouri prison during the winter of 1838-1839, but Parley P. Pratt also spent about eight months in a Missouri jail, an experience that receives little attention. Those eight months were, in a word, prolific, as Pratt produced not only a major full-length treatise describing the Mormon persecutions in Missouri, but also an important theological essay. He also wrote several surviving letters and poems. Some of the poems are better

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The Feast-day of the Lord to Joseph and Hyrum Smith, For Being Martyred for the Truth

It has recently been suggested that we should commemorate the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, rather than his birthday. I wonder how contemporary Latter-day Saints would respond to having an official holiday set aside to remember the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. In speaking to some of my friends and family about the idea, I’ve seen some resistance, in part I think to the contemporary fear of being perceived by outsiders as worshipping Joseph Smith. Parley P. Pratt, in his “One Hundred Years Hence. 1945.”, speculated that in the Millennium we will hold feast days to h

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JAH Review of Paul Reeve’s Making Space

Paul Reeve’s new book, Making Space on the Western Frontier, has received some positive reviews around the ‘nacle. ‘Nacle reviews however count for very little in the world of academia. In the latest issue of The Journal of American History historian Anne Hyde has written a very positive review of the work, calling it “an effective case study at both the micro and macro levels.” In summarizing Reeve’s study, Hyde concludes that Reeve’s attention to the workings of federal officials to privilege mining interests at the expense of Southern Paiute and Mormon claims to space in southern Utah/eastern Nevada is “stunning.” She lauds his reconstruction of efforts by Mormons and Southern Paiutes to survive the onslaught of “an awesome flexing of federal might.” The review, unlike Reeve’s prose, is a bit dry, but is well worth the read. I suspect that Paul is more than a little pleased to see his book so well reviewed in one of the top journals in the historical profession.

For those with access to a university library, here’s a like to the full text of the review.

Latino/a and Mormon

This is cross-posted at Times and Seasons, the last of my guest stint there. 

America, as they say, is browning. Latina/os recently surpassed African Americans as the largest minority group in the United States, and the Church is experiencing that browning along with the rest of the nation. “According to Church statisticians, the future of the Church does not lie in Europe, Canada, or the United States but rather in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and among the ethnic groups in this country.”[1] Given this fact, it is surprising that so little is known about the history and experiences of those that identify themselves as both Latino/a and Mormon. There is only one thin book on the subject, written by BYU historian Jessie L. Embry that is based on oral histories of BYU students and handful of Latina/o Mormons from Southern California. “In His Own Language”: Mormon Congregations in the United States is a start, but according to Ignacio M. Garcia, Lemuel Hardison Redd Chair of Western History at BYU, we need to know much more about Latino/as Mormons themselves.

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From the Archives: I was born in Sharon, Vermont

This is cross-posted at Times and Seasons. 

Yesterday was Joseph Smith’s birthday.  I wonder sometimes how important it is to us in the 21st century that he was born in Vermont, given that the narratives we use to discuss Joseph usually skip his birthplace altogether and fast forward to New York. In the 1840s, however, as the Saints struggled to win support in their redress efforts against Missouri, casting Joseph as a son of Vermont was a crucial component to the image of the Prophet. The following is Joseph’s appeal to the Green Mountain Boys, taken from HC 6:88-93. The appeal was published initially as an extra in a December 1843 Extra for the Times and Seasons (hat tip, MAM) and in 1844 in the Voice of Truth (BYU apparently just has the 1845 printing; hat tip, smb).

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Zion v. Babylon: Life in the Enclave

This is cross-posted at Times and Seasons.

 In his recent (and excellent) book, Making Space on the Western Frontier: Mormons, Miners, and Southern Paiutes, Paul Reeve examines the contact and interactions between the three groups mentioned in his title in southern Utah/eastern Nevada during the last four decades of the 19th century. Although Reeve uses the word “frontier” in his title, he is not using it in the same way as Frederick Jackson Turner, who saw the frontier as succeeding waves of Anglo

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