SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Paul Reeve is the Simmons Chair of Mormon Studies and the chair of the history department at the University of Utah.

He came up with an idea which ultimately lead to launching a website called Century of Black Mormons.

The goal from the website and the database, to share stories of African Americans who would’ve otherwise been left out of the Latter-day Saint Church.

“People within the faith sometimes think there weren’t Black Latter-day Saints until June 1978 when the faith lifted its racial restrictions. And they are sometimes uncomfortable talking about Black Latter-day Saints before then because it forces them to address racism,” Reeve said.

Launched in 2018, Century of Black Mormons website is an ever-growing database of Black Mormon history.

It’s filled with names, photographs, and any supporting documents that can help tell complete stories about the lives of each person found.

The website was launched with 30 names of Black Mormons and since 2018 it’s grown to 125.

Reeve is not the only person who’s working on this project.

He has a team of researchers (both undergrads and graduates) in his history department working on this.

They work on biographies, collect background information on pictures found, scan and upload old documents to the website.

Everyone involved in the research process are very proud of their work and make sure to detail every source in each biography.

“We have the list of sourcesbecause we’re nerdy historians and we document everything,” Reeve said.

The website focuses on African Americans who belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during its first hundred years as a faith. Dating from the years 1830 to 1930.

“There were Black Latter-day Saint pioneers. These are people who have been erased from collective Latter-day Saint memory and the database is designed to recover what was lost,” Reeve said.

Reeve went on to explain this database is a way to have a more inclusive version of Latter-day Saint and Utah history.