Exalting Blackness in Wynetta Willis Martin's: Black Mormon Tells Her Story
Black and Mormon were seemingly irreconcilable identities during the priesthood/temple ban against people of African descent (c. 1852–1978). But in 1966, Wynetta Willis Martin converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And in 1972, Martin published Black Mormon Tells Her Story. In...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
University of Californiarnia Press
2024
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| In: |
Nova religio
Year: 2024, Volume: 28, Issue: 1, Pages: 34-55 |
| Further subjects: | B
priesthood / temple ban
B Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints B Religio-racial identity B Mormonism B Black B African American |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Black and Mormon were seemingly irreconcilable identities during the priesthood/temple ban against people of African descent (c. 1852–1978). But in 1966, Wynetta Willis Martin converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And in 1972, Martin published Black Mormon Tells Her Story. In this book, Martin interwove her African American and LDS identities in a powerful way. Challenging anti-Black racism in the LDS community, Martin produced a new story about Black Mormon identity: past, present, and future. Previously underestimated as a problematic book, this article retheorizes Black Mormon Tells Her Story, emphasizing Martin's agency in race-making. This article extends Judith Weisenfeld's theory of Black new religious movements to analyze a "religio-racial narrative" authored by a Black member of the predominantly white LDS Church. Demonstrating how Martin positively reconstructed the meaning of Blackness, this article fills a gap in the scholarship on Mormon racial construction. |
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| ISSN: | 1541-8480 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Nova religio
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/nvr.2024.a935562 |