Byron Marchant, Mormon Activist

Johanna Brooks 

ltSJuoponndhsfae ulor15ed  ·

It didn't have to be this way. There were always white LDS people who opposed racism.

Byron Marchant, son of Utah State legislator Beatrice Peterson Marchant (D), worked as a meetinghouse janitor in SLC and served as his ward's scout troop leader. He welcomed local non-Mormon African American youth into the troop but was deeply upset when in 1973 local leaders told him that the African American boys were not permitted to assume leadership roles in the troop due to the Church’s priesthood/temple ban, and more so when he discovered that the white Mormon Boy Scouts in his troop used the ban to taunt their Black fellow troop members at school. Marchant recalls that the race-based taunting even escalated into a rock fight at one troop campout. He worked with the NAACP to bring national attention and pressure to the issue. His actions permanently “split” the family, nephew

Mark Barnes

later recalled. He took personal responsibility for studying LDS Church history and reports visiting Chuch archives to view for himself the ordination certificate of Elijah Abel.

In 1977, Marchant and a small cohort started a weekly picket

outside the LDS Church Office Building in downtown Salt Lake City. In October 1977, he took his protest to General Conference during the sustaining of the Church leadership, as

Mark Barnes

recalls:

As we watched the start of the Saturday afternoon session on October 2, 1977, a familiar voice boomed from the television set. I immediately knew it was Byron. “President Tanner did you note my vote?” First Counselor N. Eldon Tanner looked confused, as he searched for the source of the dissenting vote. Security responded escorting Byron from the building. Byron later explained to the press that his negative vote was meant to highlight the injustice of the priesthood ban.

He was excommunicated twelve days later, on October 14, and subsequently lost his job as a meetinghouse janitor.

Most white LDS people will "dare to be different" in all kinds of ways--but remain uncomfortable with direct action activism. Be that as it may, structural racism will not budge without risk and sacrifice by white people. If these posts speak to you, and you are a white-identified Mormon person, please, lovingly, ask yourself what you are doing today and every day to choose out of white supremacy. You don't have to make the Church a focus of your activism. Simply show up as a white Mormon person with your time and talents for any good cause led by people of color and centered around emancipation for Black people. Show up to serve, not lead. Take personal responsibility for this. It will not budge unless we all push.

On Byron Marchant, see Mark Barnes's beautiful blog post: https://ordainwomen.org/raised-a-mormon-feminist/