By Mark E. Petersen
“At Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, August 27, 1954, at the Convention of Teachers of Religion on the College Level, Petersen delivered a speech on “Race Problems –As They Affect The Church”. The speech outlined the religious underpinnings of segregation, and supported the continued practice of segregation as it related to intermarriage between blacks and whites…In April 1944, while serving as general manager of the Deseret News, Petersen was called to be a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.” From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
• We must not allow our feelings to carry us away, nor must we feel so sorry for Negroes that, we will open our arms and embrace them with everything we have. Remember the little statement that they used to say about sin, “First we pity, then endure, then embrace.”
• Is there reason then why the type of birth we receive in this life is not a reflection of our worthiness or lack of it in the pre existent life? We must accept the justice of God. He is fair to all. With that in mind, we can account in no other way for the birth of some of the children of God in darkest Africa, or in flood ridden China, or among the starving hordes of India, while some of the rest of us are born in the United States? We cannot escape the conclusion that because of performance in our pre existence some of us are born as Chinese, some as Japanese, some as Indians, some as Negroes, some as Americans, some as Latter day Saints. There are rewards and punishments, fully in harmony with His established policy in dealing with sinners and saints, rewarding all according to their deeds.
• In this birth control effort man places himself in direct opposition to the plan and laws of God. The Almighty made this world, and He made us. All human beings are His children, His spirit offspring, and it is His intention to provide each one of us with a body of flesh and bones. This body is essential to eternal progress. With this in mind He gives us the powers of procreation and permits us to join with Him in a divinely sponsored act. But by preventing or aborting legitimate births, we oppose this plan. His spirit children are born into bodies of flesh and bones by His own design. Then who are we to prevent it?
• Some who have been perfectly healthy and able to bear children have avoided this responsibility, and in doing so have resorted to the use of harmful practices and devices resulting often in physical injury to the wife and demoralization to both parties. Some have wondered if the Church would approve such practices. Of course it never has and never could.
• I think the Lord segregated the Negro and who is man to change that segregation? It reminds me of the scripture on marriage, “what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” Only here we have the reverse of the thing—what God hath separated, let no man bring together again.
• From this and other interviews I have read, it appears that the Negro seeks absorption with the white race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it by intermarriage. This is his objective and we must face it.
• Now what is our policy in regard to intermarriage? As to the Negro, of course, there is only one possible answer. We must not intermarry with the Negro…
• What is our advice with respect to intermarriage with Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiians and so on? I will tell you what advice I give personally. If a boy or girl comes to me claiming to be in love with a Chinese or Japanese or a Hawaiian or a person of any other dark race, I do my best to talk them out of it… I teach against inter marriage of all kinds.
• Now let’s talk about segregation again for a few moments. Was segregation a wrong principle? When the Lord chose the nations to which the spirits were to come, determining that some would be Japanese and some would be Chinese and some Negroes and some Americans, He engaged in an act of segregation.
• When he told Enoch not preach the gospel to the descendants of Cain who were black, the Lord engaged in segregation. When He cursed the descendants of Cain as to the Priesthood, He engaged in segregation.
• Who placed the Negroes originally in darkest Africa? Was it some man, or was it God? And when He placed them there, He segregated them.
• The Lord segregated the people both as to blood and place of residence. At least in the cases of the Lamanites and the Negro we have the definite word of the Lord Himself that he placed a dark skin upon them as a curse as a punishment and as a sign to all others. He forbade intermarriage with them under threat of extension of the curse. And He certainly segregated the descendants of Cain when He cursed the Negro as to the Priesthood, and drew an absolute line. You may even say He dropped an Iron curtain there.
• Mark E. Petersen, Race Problems As They Affect The Church, Convention of Teachers of Religion on the College Level, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, August 27, 1954
