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Racial Harmony After the Priesthood Ban

Racial Harmony After the Priesthood Ban

Last updated on: August 17, 2026 at 4:00 pm by Dan Peterson

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Racial Harmony After the Priesthood Ban 2026-08-17T16:00:53-06:00 Dan Peterson

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Elder Ahmad S. Corbitt of the Seventy (on the left) sits on Wednesday, 8 May 2024, for an interview with Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (right, foreground) and Junior Banza (right, background) as part of the Interpreter Foundation’s ongoing Not By Bread Alone video series.

A thought occurred to me while recently reading Elder Ahmad S. Corbitt’s essay (“The Revelation that Changed the World”) in the small compilation Stay Thou Nearby: Reflections on the 1978 Revelation on the Priesthood (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2023) . Elder Corbitt, an attorney who was a member of the Nation of Islam before his conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has since served as a full-time missionary in the Puerto Rico San Juan Mission, as a stake president in New Jersey, and as the president of the Dominican Republic Santo Domingo East Mission. From 2020 to 2023, he was the first counselor in the Young Men General Presidency of the Church, since which time he has been serving as a General Authority in the First Quorum of the Seventy.

Elder Edwin Q. Cannon (my former mission president) baptizing converts from the Nigerian village of Ikot Eyo on 4 March 1979.

A passage from pages 39-41 of Elder Corbitt’s printed essay, coupled with another passage from page 44, caught my attention and started me thinking. A modified form of his essay has also been published online, and it is from that somewhat different version of the essay that I quote here:

How are the works and power of God made manifest in relation to the priesthood ban? My experience suggests that because the prior ban is still well known, many people may not expect The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to achieve a worldwide multiracial brotherhood and sisterhood. But this is precisely what the Church has done, is doing, and is destined to do.27 President Henry B. Eyring taught that “a great day of unity is coming,” at a time “in which we will be prepared as a people for our glorious destiny.”28

I believe the Church’s present and continuing success in achieving unity across the earth will “attract the gaze of all the world in latter days.”29 The world will be amazed by this accomplishment. Many will come to recognize this achievement not as the mere work of clever men and women but as part of the prophesied “marvellous work and a wonder” and “great day of unity” God Himself is bringing to pass for the salvation of His children in the last days, through the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.30 As President Ezra Taft Benson taught, “Only the gospel will unite men of all races and nationalities in peace. Only the gospel will bring joy, happiness, and salvation to the human family.”31 President Dieter F. Uchtdorf affirmed, “This is truly a universal Church, with members spread across the nations of the earth proclaiming the universal message of the gospel of Jesus Christ to all, irrespective of language, race, or ethnic roots.”32

I believe The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will increasingly shine and stand apart in unity, in contrast to the racial and ethnic tensions and clashes throughout the world. Note President Eyring’s further insight: “We see increased conflict between peoples in the world around us. Those divisions and differences could infect us. … The need for that gift [of unity] to be granted to us and the challenge to maintain it will grow greater in the days ahead.”33 He promised that despite challenges, the “prophesied gathering will accelerate.”34

Regardless of how the priesthood ban came about, I’m convinced our Heavenly Father is forwardly focused on using it to show the world His works and His power to unify His earthly children of all colors in peace and love.35

“I believe,” continues Elder Corbitt in the online version of his essay, that “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will increasingly shine and stand apart in unity, in contrast to the racial and ethnic tensions and clashes throughout the world.”

Now, I’m not going to declare that I have any privileged insight into a divine purpose or intent for ordaining or allowing the pre-1978 ban on the ordination of Blacks to the priesthood and, thus, on their admission to the higher ordinances of the temple. I don’t pretend to possess any insider information regarding God’s ultimate thinking or plans on this point. However, I’m convinced that he can redeem even negative things and create light out of darkness.

The Phnom Penh Cambodia Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, shown here in a photograph taken by Sayha Hem (for which I hope this constitutes “fair use”), will be dedicated iater this month by Elder Patrick Kearon, a British-born member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

The Church’s unifying of multiple ethnicities within the Kingdom of God is ever more real and ever more noticeable. I think it easily conceivable that, within the next few years, the president — the prophet, seer, and revelator — of this supposedly most American of American churches could be a German. Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf is already the acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which includes a Brazilian, an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Chinese-American. Blacks and Whites and Asians, South Americans and Europeans and Africans and Polynesians — all serve together in the highest councils of the Church and in its congregations around the globe. (See, for example, the current list of General Authority members of the Seventy.). As a high councilman many years ago, I was assigned to a ward that was led by a Korean bishop whose first counselor was Japanese and whose second counselor was from Taiwan. One of the counselors commented to me that only in the Church was the harmonious working-together of those nationalities really conceivable.

Just this month, to choose a couple of further examples from among very, very many, an African-American General Authority, Elder John Amos, broke ground for a new temple in Huntsville, Alabama, and a Black woman who was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Rosemary K. Chibota, assumed the presidency of the Church’s organization for children.

With such facts in mind, I wonder whether the old priesthood-ordination ban might not end up serving to make the harmonious fellowship within the Church of Blacks and Whites (and others) shine even more brightly, in contrast, than it otherwise would.

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