5 - The Beginnings of a Ban and Succession Continued

Ben Finch

I found the story of William McCary, from the secondary source "Black, White and Mormon: Amalgamation", to be very illuminating. It seems to me that top church leaders had one very bad experience with a black man really reinforced the popular racist opinions of the time, ultimately leading to the ban. It was super interesting to see in the journal of Wilford Woodruff that he didn't even mention the issue of race which leads me to think it wasn't really on the minds of all of the leaders, just some of them. I also find the story of Walker Lewis to be very interesting and how some leaders found his ordination objectionable.