OKBecky: Thanks. I love to hear insider stories and it is unusual for blacks to join the Mormon church.
* * *
Not as unusual as many people think. Some of the perception comes from visual anecdotal demographics aka pictures (there aren’t many black Mormons in Utah — where people still think most of us live — because there just aren’t many black people in Utah*), and some is outdated**.
And some is just rote parroting of memes.
One of our sons served a mission in Brazil the late 1990s. He and his companion had a door slammed in their faces one day by a man who claimed he would never join the Church because they didn’t allow blacks to be members (which was never true). The Brazillion elder rubbed at his arm real hard and then said, “Funny, it doesn’t come off.”

*1.1% of the 2016 population
https://gardner.utah.edu/wp-content/uploads/RaceandEthnicity_FactSheet20170825.pdf

**The Latter-day Saints have congregations in these African countries to date:
Angola
Benin
Botswana
Burundi
Cameroon
Cape Verde
Central African Republic
Cote d’Ivoire (I have a friend from here, and helped her father at home contact the local branch)
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Ethiopia
Ghana
Kenya (One of our ward’s young men served a mission here)
Lesotho
Liberia (I have neigbors from here)
Madagascar
Malawi
Mauritius
Mozambique
Namibia
Nigeria
Republic of the Congo
Reunion
Rwanda
Sierra Leone
South Africa
Swaziland
Tanzania
Togo
Uganda
Zambia
Zimbabwe

https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/facts-and-statistics/country

OKBecky: Thanks. I love to hear insider stories and it is unusual for blacks to join the Mormon church.

I confess I don’t get Mormonism but I can tell it works for a lot of people. And I appreciate that Mormons, such as Gladys Knight, don’t have a problem defending America.

That Don Lemon would show Kaepernick’s attorney pontificating how a Superbowl performer would be “crossing a picket line” as a challenge to Gladys Knight singing the national anthem made my blood boil. (H/T John Guillfoyle)

Here’s Gladys singing, “O Say Can You See”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTuoq6TllaU

She’s 74. She can’t hit the high notes, but what passion, what control!

The ads? I hardly looked at them. Gladys Knight and the National Anthem? Fantastic! What a performance.

Training camp opens in August. On to next season. 🙂

Sis. Knight talked about her son joining the Church first, and how very concerned she was that he was joining this “white, racist” church. After a few years, seeing her son and his family growing even happier, she started investigating the faith for herself, and eventually converted.

Regarding the Tabernacle Choir, members of the choir have to audition, plus demonstrate a solid knowledge of music theory. I love to sing, but I can’t wrap my brain around music theory so phooey. But applicants must also live within a certain distance of Salt Lake City, and they are *not* to move to the area just so they can get into the choir. The choir spends many hours practicing, and they travel on tour every year. If I recall correctly, mothers with younger children at home are not accepted into the choir. I’m unsure if the same limitation applies to the father.

Regarding ethnic markers, over half the Church’s membership is outside of the U.S., and aside from the U.S. and Canada, the countries with the largest numbers of members are in Latin America. There is also significant growing membership in Africa and Asia, which is no small feat given the violence, political repression, and social pressures that exist in many countries on those continents.

A few years ago, our ward [congregation] in Phoenix had an African-American bishop, with one counselor half-Belizan and the other counselor Polynesian. Shortly after we moved, our bishop was made stake president (like a diocese, the stake consists of many wards in a geographical area). We visited last year, and one of the counselors in the stake presidency is from Mexico and had to speak via translator because he feels his English is not good enough to convey all that is in his heart. It was a privilege to hear him speak and to learn from him.

Just wanting to share some insight on my church. 🙂