March 6, 1979

In the Spring of 1954 I was engaged in a lengthy private conversation concerning orthodoxy and heresy with President David O. McKay in the Auerbach Room of the old Union Building of the University of Utah. During the conversation, I remarked to President McKay that I had told a group in my ward that I did not believe the common Mormon doctrine that the Negroes are under a divine curse, that I regarded this as a false and morally abhorrent.doctrine with which I refused to be identified. President McKay replied, with considerable feeling, that he was "glad" that I had taken this position because he also did not believe this teaching. He said, ''There is not now, and there never has been a doctrine in this Church that the Negroes are under a divine curse." He insisted that there is no doctrine in the Church of any kind pertaining to the Negro. "We believe," he said, "that we have scriptural precedent for withholding the priesthood from the Negro. It is a practice, not a doctrine, and the practice will some day be changed. And that's all there is to it." He identified the "scriptural precedent" as the well-known passage in the Book of Abraham, 1:26-27. He made no reference to the Bible or the Cain and Abel story. I was impressed by President McKay's response, and I told him that in view of the fact that the generality of the people in the Church did believe that it is an official teaching of the Church that the Negroes are under a divine curse, I hoped that he would be willing to make a similar statement on this matter to the entire Church, either orally in a statement in Conference or through the publication of an official statement. He sat quietly for what seemed to be a rather long time and finally said, "There is no such doctrine and as far as I am concerned there never was." The importance of this position of President McKay's is obvious. If the Church's practice with respect to Negroes were based on doctrine, it would be difficult to effect any change in that practice, as the Church can't very well change its doctrines even by revelation. Even if it were held that granting the priesthood to the Negroes would require revelation, this would be possible only if no doctrinal matters were involved.

I hoped, therefore, that President McKay would make his view on the subject public, or at least express it to his associates among the General Authorites. Thereafter, I occasionally confided the substance of this discussion to friends, but from considerations of propriety I refrained from any kind of public statement involving President McKay. On two occasions, in 1959 and again in 1968, I addressed the Salt Lake City Chapter of the NAACP on the subject of the Mormon Church and the Blacks, and on both of those occasions I insisted that the Church did not have an official doctrine that the Blacks are under a divine curse. I did not mention, however, my conversation with President McKay nor did I ascribe anything to him on this subject. The 1959 address was entirely extemporaneous, but the 1968 address was read and was later published by the NAACP. In the late 1960's it seemed rather obvious that President McKay would probably not make a public statement on this matter. I at least wanted his sons, with three of whom I was well-acquainted, to know of the conversation in which their father had expressed his views, and I felt that I should tell them of it while he was still living so they would have an opportunity to have him verify my account. Accordingly, I addressed a letter, ^dated August 26, 1968,^ to President McKay's son, Dr. Llewelyn R. McKay, sending copies to his other three sons, Lawrence, Edward and Robert, in which I recounted the occasion of my meeting with President McKay and his statement to the effect that the idea that the Negroes are under a divine curse is not a doctrine of the Church and never was and that withholding the priesthood from them was a practice only, a practice that would some day be changed. It was well-known that President McKay was in ill health at this time, but sometime later Llewelyn told me that he had read the letter to his father and that his father listened very attentively and said, following the reading, "That is exactly what happened and that is exactly what I said."

Although the letter was written only to President McKay's sons, I occasionally gave a copy to persons who had a very intense interest in this matter and whose good judgment I could trust. One of those was Mr. Stephen Taggart, who was then a graduate student in sociology at Cornell University. Taggart was in the process of writing an extended essay on the background of the Church practice of withholding the priesthood from the Blacks. I had read his manuscript and made a few suggestions on it and thereafter on two or three occasions he called on me to discuss it. I let him have a copy of my letter to Llewelyn McKay, and as he has indicated in his essay, which was later published under the title of MORMONISM'S NEGRO POLICY by the University of Utah Press, he checked the matter out with Llewelyn McKay. In a footnote on page 74 Taggart indicates that Llewelyn McKay advised him that President McKay affirmed the reliability of my account of the conversation.

Over the next several months it became evident to me that my letter to Llewelyn McKay had become known to at least some of the General Authorities of the Church. It was reported to me that President Harold B. Lee, for instance, had on more than one occasion indicated that apparently I had misunderstood President McKay, that he would not have made a statement of this kind. President Hugh B. Brown assured me that he was confident that my report expressed President McKay's views. I was pleased that my account of the meeting with President McKay had reached some of the General Authorities. I assumed that the Church's practice might some day be changed and that President McKay's views on the matter in connection with the problem of doctrine might very well have some impact on the situation. Even more than that, my great respect for President McKay prompted me to want his view on this matter known even though I felt that there would be impropriety in my making any kind of public statement. As is well-known, in 1969 under the date of December 15, an official document was issued over the signatures of President Hugh B. Brown and President Nathan Eldon Tanner which explicitly stated that a change in the practice relative to the priesthood and the Negroes would require a revelation. However, I was pleased to discover that this statement made no reference to ''doctrine~·· and no reference tomthe idea of a curse.

On January 8, 1970, Mr. Roy Gibson, who was writing an article on the Mormon-Negro issue for TIME, requested an interview with me, and I thereafter let him have a copy of my letter to the McKay brothers. DIALOGUE magazine and the NEW YORK TIMES, as well as others, also requested and received copies.

On January 13, Mr. Roger Porter, a writer for the SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, advised me that he had read the letter to Llewelyn McKay and requested an interview for an article for the TRIBUNE. My first reaction and response was that I was not willing to be interviewed and did not want the substance of the letter to be made public in a newspaper. However, I had already granted an interview to Mr. Gibson, and after talking with Mr. Porter at some length and discussing his capabilities with others, I decided that I would set aside my feelings of impropriety in this matter and grant the interview. Mr. Porter wrote a good article which gave a very acceptable account of my discussion with President McKay, and thereafter on January 15, it was published by the SALT LAKE TRIBUNE. It was picked up by the Associated Press, who interviewed me further on the subject, and its substance was thereafter published in numerous newspapers and other news organs throughout the country. Dr. Llewelyn McKay made a statement to the SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, which was repeated at least on the Channel 4 news in Salt Lake City, confirming his father's affirmative position on the letter.

Mr. Sandy Gilmour, who then was a reporter on Channel 4-TV (KCPX) in Salt Lake City, apparently learned from Mr. Porter that he was doing an article for the TRIBUNE and immediately pressed me for a TV interview. I was very much opposed to this at first but finally relented. Gilmour and his crew came to my home and did an interview program of about 35 or 40 minutes in length. I personally thought that he did an exceptionally good job of interviewing and was quite satisfied with the program although I was involved in real conflicts in my own thinking as to whether or not the program should be aired on TV. Although I felt that it was not my business to reveal to the public a statement which President McKay had made to me in private and which apparently he himself had never made public, it was my very strong feeling that his statement had a level of importance for the Church that required that I be willing to make it public. In addition, there was my strong affection and esteem for President McKay and my desire to have the liberality of his views on this matter generally known.

However, I later learned from Mr. Gilmour that Channel 4 had decided that it would be unwise to air the program. I have since been reliably informed that after President McKay's death Channel 4 decided that the interview could never be aired as my remarks "would lack credibility."

Sterling M. McMurrin