For the Cause of Righteousness

I have started to read Russell W. Stevenson's book with this title. It is not an easy book to read.

The full title is "For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830-2013" but do not think for a second it is at all a sugar coated history.

I have not seen evidence that Stevenson quite lives up to his title. I am to page 95. So far Stevenson has focused on the following locations. The United States, although at times on Utah without producing any evidence that anyone involved in what he is actually quoting is a Mormon. While such maybe can be assumed for some parts of Utah, 1920s Park City and Price are not such places.

He has made a vague reference to LDS policies and African-Americans in the southern states mission in the 1940s, but LDS black relations in the south did not consume much of his focus. While his discussion of LDS blacks in the 19th-century seems comprehensive, other sources I have read have spoken a lot more of Green Flake and his role as a faithful black Latter-day Saint, and also of at least one post-Civil War black convert in the American south whose name I have forgitten.

There was also a black convert in South Africa who immigrated to Idaho where he was killed in sheep/cattle raiser infighting who is not mentioned at all. The discussion of the Church in South Africa is arguably too focused on the racial issue as a prisom to see what is going on. In fact I would argue the book is too focused on theology and thought, too little on action. It is definetely not the book I wish it was.

The book does delve into the Nigerians and Ghanaians who organized themselves, and some of whom even had authorization to act on behalf of the Church, granted by a member of the 1st presidency in a letter, even though at that point they had not been baptized. As is my general critcism of the book, I do not think Stevenson has taken a broad enough historical view, or properly contextualized what was going on in those two countries. He has given a generalized allusion to the Biafra Conflict, but considering how much this was a disruption to the growth of the congregations of people weeking baptism, and considering that he mentions at least two leaders of such congregations who were killed during the conflict, I think more background on it is needed.

Another flaw of the book is that it focuses too much on people who made statements without ever showing anyone cared about some. On the other hand, it ignores people like Florence Chukwurah, who was a key figure in the Church, served with her husband as he presided over the then multi-national Ghana Accra Mission, did much good as a nurse, and served as a member of the Relief Society General Board after she had moved from her native Nigeria to Salt Lake City.

Another example of an inadequacy is that the Genesis Group is according to the index mentioned on only one page.

An even bigger complaint is that the title of the book misleadingly leads the reader to belief that the book will focus heavily on events from 1978-2013. This is not the case at all. It is not until page 159 of the 201 pages of the historical narrative (as opposed to the section entitled "The Documents") that we get into a discussion of things from 1978 to the present. This is short shafting all things considered. In countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Ivory Coast and many others the only history at all is starting after 1978.

True, for the historian it is incredibly hard to write about very recent events, because of the fact that many oral histories are taken with time locks on them that make them not accesable, much of the foot work of gathering documents is done after the fact and so on. Also, for a writing on this grand scale, use of secondary sources is often neccesary, and thus the problems mentioned above become even more prominent.

However I have to say I dislike the short shafting of the recent. Maybe my approach would over emphasize the recent. On the other hand a book published in 2014 that does not, at least per the index, mention general authority seventy Joseph W. Sitati, who had held that position for 5 years when the book went to press, nor mention singing icon Alex Boye, but can find space to mention Randy Bott, needs to be chalenged as an objective history.

In fact, if the book was really seeking a globalized history of blacks in Mormonism, it would have mentioned Edward Dube. His call in April 2013 was not too recent for inclusion, since the book includes an except from the First Presidency authorized Church publication "Race and the Priesthood" which came out in December 2013. Even before he was made a general authority Dube had been the moving force behind LDS growth in Zimbabwe. He was called a modern day Wilford Woodruff for his force in moving the Church forward in an ensign article before he was called as a general authority. Stevenson is too narrow in his coverage.