Imagine being told your skin color was evidence of something you did wrong before you were even born.
Now imagine hearing it from people claiming to speak for God.
For generations, Black people faced religious explanations like that.
Consider this history:
Elijah Abel, a Black man, was ordained to the priesthood during Joseph Smith’s lifetime.
Then, in 1852, Brigham Young announced that Black men of African descent could no longer be ordained.
Pause there.
A Black man could hold the priesthood. Then Black men were barred.
What changed about their humanity?
Nothing.
But theology supplied justifications: Cain’s curse. Ham and Canaan. Claims that Black people had been “less valiant” before birth.
Would you have questioned the restriction—or trusted the people explaining why God supposedly wanted it?
The priesthood and temple restrictions lasted until 1978. The Church today explicitly disavows those racial theories.
But that leaves a question much bigger than one church:
How many beliefs feel unquestionably true to you because you examined them—and how many because someone you trusted taught them to you?
Everyone imagines they would have challenged yesterday’s prejudice.
What happens when challenging it means questioning your own authority figures today?