1978 Revelation on Priesthood

The 1978 Revelation on Priesthood was a revelation announced by leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) that reversed a long-standing policy excluding men of black African descent from the priesthood.

Men of black African descent were permitted to hold the priesthood in the early years of the Latter Day Saint movement, when Joseph Smith was alive. After Smith died, Brigham Young became leader of the LDS Church denomination of the Latter Day Saint movement, and many were excluded from holding the priesthood. This practice persisted after Young's death, and was maintained until the announcement of the 1978 revelation.

In the decades leading up to the 1978 revelation, it became increasingly difficult for the church to maintain its policy on Africans and the priesthood. The difficulties arose both from outside protests and internal challenges encountered as the membership grew in far away areas of the world outside of the predominantly white Utah. Internal challenges in administering the priesthood ban were mainly due to the difficulty in determining which peoples were of African ancestry in areas such as the Brazil, the Philippines and Caribbean and Polynesian Islands as well as shortages of available people for local church leadership positions in areas with a predominantly black population such as Nigeria or the Dominican Republic.

The majority of the protests against the policy coincided with the rise of the civil rights movement in the United States during the 1960s. In 1963, Hugh B. Brown made a statement on civil rights during General Conference in order to avert a planned protest of the conference by the NAACP. During the late 1960s and 1970s, black athletes at some universities refused to compete against teams from church owned Brigham Young University. A protest in 1974 was in response to the exclusion of black scouts to become leaders in church sponsored Boy Scout troops. By 1978, when the policy was changed, external pressure had slackened somewhat.

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