Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness

Abstract

W. Paul Reeve offers an intriguing examination of the confluence of racial and religious identity in Religion of a Different Color. Mormonism's struggle with racial inclusiveness allows Reeve to illuminate the meaning of whiteness in a number of unique ways. He concludes that Mormons succeeded in being deemed “white” by American society only at the expense of their earlier racial inclusiveness. Their achievement also came just as white supremacy waned and segregation became a moral evil. Hence, Mormonism again became racially suspect, this time for being “too white” (pp. 12, 214). Reeve organizes his book around the fictitious multiethnic family of one “Elder Berry.” Berry's children are presented in stereotypical images and include a Native American, a Chinese, and an African American child along with a Dutch, a Scottish, and an Irish child. Using this conceit, Reeve examines how mainstream Americans defined Mormons by associating them with the racial characteristics of Native Americans, Asians, and African Americans. In all cases, the Mormon practice of polygamy—even after it was officially abandoned—provided outsiders with fodder for accusing Mormons both of degeneracy and amalgamation. Mormons responded by increasingly denouncing miscegenation and imposing racial restrictions on the priesthood and on access to various Temple Ordinances (rites and ceremonies conducted only in a temple).