Century of Black Mormons

Thomas worked a variety of jobs to make ends meet. He eventually spent two years in federal prison. Mary divorced him and he passed away alone in 1959, near Seattle, Washington, at age 79.
Meet Thomas and learn the rest of his story here exhibits.lib.utah.edu/s/century-of...

Thomas went on to marry Mary Susan Leggroan, the youngest daughter of Ned and Susan Leggroan, a formerly enslaved couple who converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1873. Thomas and Mary had three children together and moved frequently.

On June 3, 1879, Ellen gave birth to the couple's first child, Thomas George Tanner. The couple had Thomas blessed in the Salt Lake 3rd Ward when he was almost three years old. After moving to Chester, in Fremont County, Idaho, Thomas was baptized there in 1889 at the age of ten.

After Ellen Susannah Hathaway, a white Latter-day Saint, fled her plural marriage to a much older man, she married Thomas F. Tanner, a Black migrant from Missouri who was not a Latter-day Saint.

Alexander is observant, practical, and counters common white enslaver narratives of a more humane treatment of their slaves.
Meet Alex, as he was commonly called, and learn the rest of his story here: exhibits.lib.utah.edu/s/century-of...

Though Alexander left few traces behind to document his life aside from census and other vital records, his interview with Taylor offers invaluable insight into the history of slavery in Utah.

In fact, he gave one of the only firsthand accounts of the bleak conditions that enslaved people endured in the territory and of their reaction to emancipation in the Mountain West.

Alexander Bankhead and his wife, Marinda Redd Bankhead, were well-liked in the small town and devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Even still, Alexander offered a frank recollection of his life as an enslaved man in Utah.

In 1899, the notable Black journalist Julius F. Taylor interviewed an elderly Black couple in the small Utah County community of Spanish Fork for his newspaper, the Broad Ax.

Not true. People of Black African ancestry have been members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from its founding in 1830 to the present. The Century of Black Mormons project documents their lives.

They did so despite policies in place designed to prevent such ordinances for people of Black African ancestry, even for those who had passed away.

Meet Annie May and read the rest of her story here: exhibits.lib.utah.edu/s/century-of...

Less than two months following her death, likely her sister Bessie or her sister Olive (or both) went to the Salt Lake Temple and performed proxy rituals in Annie May’s behalf.

"I know that the Lord will bless us and that we will be together again and I want to tell you I love you more than you will ever no." Tragically, Annie died in Alabama, less than three months after penning her letter.

There, on 3 December 1911, Annie May wrote a heartfelt and longing letter home to her mother: "I am here alone," she said, "but am staying with Mrs. Rathburn. She is very good to me but it is not like being with you or Ivard."

The same bishop who denied her parents temple admission, officiated at Annie May's civil ceremony less than three years later as she wed Ivard Rathburn, a man not of her faith. After her marriage, she and Ivard moved to Alabama.

the leader of their local Latter-day Saint congregation, deemed that her father, Nelson Holder Ritchie, “had negro blood in him.” Annie May thereafter lived out the legacy of her parents’ mixed-race marriage.

Annie May Ritchie died young, at age 25, just over a year after her marriage. She was the daughter of a formerly enslaved father and a white mother. Her parents were denied temple admission in 1909 because the family’s bishop

Black people have been part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1830, its founding year, to the present. From 1852 to 1978 they were barred from priesthood and temples but always allowed membership through baptism. The Century of Black Mormons project documents their lives.

Meet Ida Belle and learn the rest of her story here: exhibits.lib.utah.edu/s/century-of...

By the time that she returned to Salt Lake City as an adult, after spending most of her life in Idaho, she had converted to the Seventh Day Adventist Church, the faith community she called her own when she passed away at age 87.

Though Ida Belle was very young during the family’s time on “the hill,” as the Mill Creek region was called, her experiences shaped her sense of identity and may have factored into her decision to relocate back to the area at the end of her long life.

There the Leggroan family helped to establish a farming enclave of Black residents on the east bench overlooking the valley.

The formerly enslaved couple had traveled west, purchased land, converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and become one of the first Black families to settle the Mill Creek area of the Salt Lake Valley.

Ida Belle Leggroan Dixon's mother and father migrated to Utah from Mississippi in 1870 after being emancipated at the end of the Civil War.

Additional jars remain in Utah, to be displayed as part of Utah Black History exhibits.

Meet Thomas Coleman and read the rest of his story here. Content Warning: the Coleman biography contains racist language and a description of his violent death. exhibits.lib.utah.edu/.../cen.../p...

Attendees collected soil from the site of Thomas’s murder and that of Harvey. Two jars containing the soil were sent to the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, to be displayed at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

Black community leaders, ministers, and a representative from the governor’s office joined a poet, a singer, and students from the BYU Black Menaces to commemorate the lives of Coleman and Harvey and to publicly acknowledge and condemn their murders.

On Saturday, June 11, 2022, Sema Hadithi and the Salt Lake County Community Coalition, in coordination with the Equal Justice Initiative, hosted a soil gathering ceremony at the lynching sites of Thomas Coleman and William “Sam Joe” Harvey (another Black man lynched in Salt Lake City).

He was convicted of manslaughter 3 years later. Sadly, his life was cut short by violent death in 1866, a racial lynching in which his body was dumped on Arsenal Hill (now Capitol Hill) on the north bench overlooking downtown Salt Lake City as a public warning against race mixing.

He was known as Thomas Bankhead in early records, but used Coleman (sometimes Colburn) as his surname, likely in remembrance of his mother. He participated in the rescue of fellow Latter-day Saints stranded in a winter storm in Wyoming, the only known enslaved man to do so.