Exhibit: Showing History of Blacks in Mormon Church

As an active Mormon and former missionary, I was pleased to hear about the exhibit of African American heirlooms at the Los Angeles Temple Visitors Center. (“History of Black Mormonism,”) We have come a long way in a relatively short time.

It wasn’t that long ago that our prophets taught as Scripture that African Americans would never hold the Mormon priesthood in this life, and that God’s penalty for interracial marriage with African Americans will always be “death on the spot.”

It took courage for our leaders to overturn these doctrines in 1978, especially when the reversal implicitly labeled three of our prophets--Brigham Young, David O. McKay and George A. Smith--as purveyors of false doctrine.

The exhibit doesn’t mention this aspect of the courage and inspiration that went into that 1978 decision, but our leaders can be proud of themselves. We are certainly proud of them.

MICHAEL J. BARRETT, Sterling, Va.