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Race, Latter-Day Saint Doctrine, and Athletics at Utah State University, 1960-1961
Race, Latter-day Saint Doctrine, and Athletics at Utah State University, 1960–1961
BY JESSICA MARIE NELSON
Utah State University’s 1960–1961 school year was a particularly tumultuous and chaotic one. While the Aggie football team celebrated nine wins to two losses—its best year in school history—the basketball team struggled to match its tremendous success of the previous year, and head coach Cec Baker announced his resignation before the season was over. 1 The university’s newspaper, Student Life, reported that some angry fans responded by hanging an effigy of the former coach. 2 Meanwhile, in January, USU president Daryl Chase called a meeting with the school’s African American athletes—including Darnel Haney and other members of the basketball team—to strongly advise them against causing trouble by dating white women. Simultaneously, the publication of a book entitled Mormonism and the Negro by USU journalism professor John J. Stewart revealed racism within the university, the local community, and Latter-day Saint beliefs and sparked a campus-wide discussion about the place of Mormonism at a growing university with a significant international student presence. 3 A lot of this commotion manifested itself in letters to the editor of the school newspaper where concerned students, alumni, and faculty debated Latter-day Saint doctrine on race, whether or not the local Latter-day Saint community was narrow minded in its political and world views, and the efficacy of professors sharing their criticisms of Latter-day Saint doctrines and Mormon culture. While some of these topics related to national or even international problems, much of this correspondence concerned local issues in which Mormonism was the fulcrum.
The 1960–1961 Utah State University men’s basketball team. Courtesy Special Collections, USU.
Scholarship on African Americans and the racism they experienced in twentieth century Utah has primarily focused on discriminatory laws and practices in Ogden, Salt Lake City, and Provo. 4 This essay seeks to add Utah State University and the campus community in Logan to this body of work, including how Mormonism informed a part of the rigidity toward racial equality and social changes in the state. The 1960–1961 school year at Utah State was a year in which conservative white alumni, administrators, and a portion of the student body pushed back against the larger movement for equality. Utah State was not unique in this regard—similar events unfolded at many predominantly white institutions and states in the country—but the frictions created that year offer insight into how the intersections of race, religion, and local politics took shape in Utah in the mid-twentieth century.
This episode in Utah history fits squarely within the civil rights movement, although it is more indicative of its location within the West than representative of the freedom struggle as a whole. While students at Utah State were debating whether Latter-day Saints were prejudiced and exclusionary, segregationists violently rioted on the University of Georgia’s campus in January 1961 in direct response to the court-ordered admission of Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, the school’s first African American students. Although some Georgia students opposed the violence, a large number were invested in trying to maintain segregation. 5 In contrast, Utah State, like other colleges and universities outside of the South, had admitted African American students before the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. Mignon Barker, an African American from Salt Lake City, became the first black woman to graduate from a Utah college when she completed a degree in 1921 at Utah State Agriculture College. 6 However, as in other western locales, racial discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations remained an endemic part of society even though certain color barriers had been broken or were not as stark
as in other parts of the country. 7 Utah’s law against interracial marriage, on the other hand, more closely aligned the state with the South than its neighboring western states. The Utah legislature bolstered the law against interracial marriage as late as 1939 and was the secondto-last state in the West to allow interracial couples to marry when it removed the statute in 1963. Even though discriminatory laws in Utah changed before the Supreme Court ruled against interracial marriage restrictions in Loving v. Virginia (1967), cultural and institutional prejudice against interracial marriage was distinct in Utah compared to other states in its region in the early 1960s. 8
Knowing that interracial relationships—especially between white women and black men— were a cause for alarm in their community, Utah State University president Daryl Chase, vice president Milton R. Merrill, and dean J. Elliot Cameron called a meeting with the few African American athletes on USU’s athletic teams on January 15, 1961, to address the issue. According to news reports, the administrators wanted to inform them “of public criticism directed at USU regarding the number of black students on campus and their social activities.” 9 At this meeting, Chase took the opportunity to strongly advise these black students against interracial dating. A later Salt Lake Tribune article published on February 4 recorded Chase’s reasons for calling the meeting with the school’s black students. First, he wanted to explain “that some persons ‘felt that too many scholarships were being given to Negro, out-ofstate students.’” Second, he wanted to “inform them that ‘we . . . have a problem with Negro students dating white girls.’” Chase termed such dating “very unwise” and then showed the group a U.S. News and World Report article about an interracial couple at Alfred University the previous February. 10
The 1960 article detailed the events following the interracial relationship of Dorothy Lebohner and Warren Sutton. Lebohner, a white freshman, was described as “startlingly slim, tender-looking, fair and blonde-haired” with a “fragile, fairylike quality about her, and a pair of innocent-looking, pin-up lips.” On the other hand, Sutton, an African American basketball player, was described as “6 feet 3 inches tall with a physique of classic proportions, but rather heavy facial features.” The two started dating the summer before Lebohner’s freshman year at Alfred University, a racially integrated campus in New York. 11 After both students dropped out of school, Dorothy’s parents decided to send her to Florida to forget about Warren, but the couple planned a secret rendezvous to run off together. When Edward Lebohner—Dorothy’s father and Alfred University’s treasurer—discovered his daughter’s disappearance, he obtained a police warrant for her arrest for being a “wayward minor.” Robert Bird, the author of the article, asked his readers a rhetorical question: “Is marriage between a white girl and a Negro morally permissible? Or practically possible?” Bird queried a few African American students’ views on the subject, including those of one student who surmised that interracial relationships are to succeed in America because they “just cause headaches. People are cruel, children are cruel. It’s just natural. It would be better to live in Europe if you had an interracial marriage rather than buck society here. It can’t be done.” 12
To keep the administration’s hands clean, Chase created an unofficial policy against interracial dating and made the black students the responsible parties for averting racial issues—rather than making a commitment to racial equality. 13 “We are very inexperienced (in Negro-white relationships) on this campus,” Chase stated, “and I don’t think we could avoid this sort of thing,” referring to the “irreparable damage” the negative publicity had caused Alfred University. That story provided Chase substantiating evidence that interracial dating and the controversy that followed would reflect poorly on universities and their administrators. Chase knew his community well, sympathized with the broader opposition to interracial relationships, and hoped to avoid the proverbial headache that Alfred University had experienced by preventing it from happening in the first place. However, this meeting ultimately resulted in questions concerning USU’s racial policy and required the administrators to try to set the record straight— that USU had no racial policy—on multiple occasions over the next few weeks.
According to senior Tom Jones, the editor-in-chief of Student Life, the truth of what actually transpired at that meeting “played little part . . . as some students eagerly heard, accepted, and passed on some sad stories concerning race relations on campus.” 14 Some of the rumors circulating on campus included that black athletes would be stripped of their scholarships for dating white women and that women living in residence halls would be penalized for accepting dates with “the Negroes.” Vice President Merrill wrote to Chase on January 21 about the rumors and noted that “the campus is seething (the description of a reasonably judicious informant) with the report that you called all of the Negro students in and issued an ultimatum to the effect that interracial dating would result in immediate expulsion of the Negro involved.” 15 Merrill likely overstated the reaction to Chase’s meeting with the black students by saying that the whole campus was “seething.” 16 Generational differences between the administration and students likely played a role in Merrill’s perception of how vocal the campus community opposition was, and perhaps he was surprised to hear that even a few people would be upset if the rumors about expulsion for interracial dating were true.
Daryl Chase, president of USU from 1954–1968. Courtesy Special Collections, USU, USU-A0915b.
At least one student disapproved of the way that the administration handled the community’s concerns about the “social activities” of African American students. Jacob W. Kijne, a graduate student from the Netherlands studying irrigation engineering, shared his contention with the administration’s actions via a letter to the editor of Student Life: “I do not believe that that it is the right way to solve the problem by advising the persons involved to abstain from the not accepted activities . . . the administration of this University should have done better by issuing a statement to guarantee and defend the personal freedom, regardless of criticism from outside the University.” 17
The administration’s shock at both student speculation and the public inquiries into USU’s racial policy that followed are evidence that the administrators did not anticipate any racial issues. 18 In notes Chase made on January 21, 1961, he revealed how rarely the issue of race had been broached on campus: “The subject has never come up in any Board meeting; nor has any Board member spoken to me personally about the subject as a problem of the school.
All our policies deal with students—not race.” 19 While there was no segregation policy at USU and the university operated under the premise of seeing and dealing with students and not their race, the administration’s approach reflected a form of proto-colorblind racism. 20 “The rules of the University,” Chase wrote, “as found in the Catalog, the Student Body Constitution, and in the Faculty Code, are dealing with human beings. As such, it makes no racial distinction; and in harmony with this, the school is administered.” 21 The void of a statutory racial policy at USU was, in practice, filled by racial bias held by Chase and members of the community with whom he corresponded. These letters illustrate the reluctance, and even open opposition, of both university administrators and the community to any conscious racial equality.
The sudden discussion of race issues on campus probably prompted the administration to launch an investigation into the academic standing of the few “Negro students on campus.” Although small in number, black male students were particularly visible because of their high profile on athletic teams. J. Elliot Cameron reported to Chase on January 21, 1961, that there were only twelve black students on campus: ten “boys,” seven of whom were athletes on scholarship or assistantship to play football or basketball, and two “girls.” 22 Cameron also reported the cumulative and fall quarter grade point averages (GPAs) for all black students to Chase in an undated document retained in Chase’s papers. 23 “President,” Cameron began, “the two girls listed are in good standing. . . . All other students are on probation because of low fall grades, or low cumulative grades.”
In the process of evaluating the academic performance of USU’s black students, the administrators failed to take into consideration the ways in which racism had already impacted the educational experiences of those students at the primary, secondary, and university levels. Darnel Haney, a member of the 1960–1961 basketball team, did not attend school with white students until his freshman year of high school, having gone to segregated schools in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. Haney’s father was murdered when he was just seven years old. His family of twelve relied on the odd jobs he and his siblings could find—such as picking potatoes and shining shoes—to supplement his mother’s income as a domestic worker and the government welfare they received. 24 Although Haney struggled academically at USU in 1960–1961, he went on to receive a M.S. in Sociology from USU in 1973, writing a master’s thesis titled “Factors Contributing to the Black High School Dropout Rate.” 25 Haney also related the insulting experience of being in USU classrooms and overhearing other students talk amongst themselves about him. Once during a biology lecture, the professor used the expression “there must be a nigger in the wood pile” in Haney’s presence. This set of economic, educational, and racial circumstances, in addition to the time-consuming task of being student athletes, made life and academic performance difficult for black students at USU. 26
Records do not indicate what academic probation meant for these student athletes, but evidence suggests that at least one community member hoped that USU would turn black students away based on the racist assumption that black students were more disposed to immoral and criminal behavior. “Please believe me,” Wayne B. Garff wrote to Chase in February of 1961,
It is likely that Garff, a resident of Salt Lake City and a 1936 graduate of then–Utah State Agricultural College (USAC), had every hope that USU would remain a predominantly white institution. Census records indicate that during the years Garff attended USAC, the African American population of Cache County was somewhere between one and four persons. When Garff typed his letter to Chase, African Americans made up 0.5 percent of Utah’s population of 890,627, were largely concentrated in Ogden, and were outnumbered by both the Native American and Japanese populations. Without any likely personal interaction with African Americans, Garff’s prejudice was informed by racial stereotypes and a fear of white Utahns losing the power that their dominant share of the state’s population (98.1 percent) guaranteed them. 28 Garff proclaimed himself a spokesman for USU alumni and other Utahns who thought of African Americans as outsiders who did not belong in Utah. The Utahns Garff insisted on representing were bent on retaining racial barriers in the state, including on college campuses. They perceived the presence of African Americans at USU as a threat to their alma mater, their morals and social customs, and their accustomed interpretation of state and federal laws.
Along with alumni like Garff, Chase received a message expressing concern about interracial dating from Trustee David W. Evans. In a memorandum dated January 25, 1961, ten days after Chase’s meeting with the black students, Chase recorded that he “received a call from Trustee Evans, who seemed quite concerned about the rumors in Salt Lake about the relationships between Haynie [sic] and a girl in North Logan who, it was represented, was pregnant. He wanted to know if I were aware of it and doing anything about it. . . . He urged me to keep him up to date on the negro question and said we might have a special committee of the Board look into it, etc.” 29 On the other side of that story stood Daryl Haney himself who experienced the community’s judgment firsthand. About dating interracially as a student athlete at USU, Haney remarked, “of course that wasn’t accepted at all. And since we were a losing team [during the 1960–1961 season], I was a big problem for Utah State. They wanted me out of there. They watched me every place I went.” According to Haney, other black athletes were dating interracially as well, but they did so secretly to avoid the negative attention that could potentially jeopardize their athletic careers. 30
Even though social acceptance was conditional at best for African American students, USU administrators seemed to think that the university was making gains in developing a multicultural campus. Senior editor Tom Jones quoted President Chase in a Student Life article as saying, “We are proud of the cosmopolitan character of the student body. I think that it can truthfully be said that to a remarkable degree we are learning how to work and study and socialize together as members of the great human family. Our staff openings, student offices, scholarships, and donors are open to all, are dispensed to all, and are retained by all on the basis of merit.” 31 Concurrent national events, such as the student sit-in movement in North Carolina and the Supreme Court’s Boynton v. Virginia (1960) decision ending Jim Crow segregation in public transportation, provided some perspective for USU administrators evaluating their campus. Colleges across the country were sites of social change, protest, and even violence during the decade of the 1960s. 32 President Chase wanted the USU student body to be proud of the fact that things were not as bad in Logan as they were other places and that USU was able to stay above the political unrest and racial fray that was disrupting universities and making national headlines.
While Chase publicly spoke of accommodating racial and ethnic diversity on campus and affirmed that the only means of judgment was based on academic merit, underneath all of that public posturing was the truth of the matter: neither he nor the local community wanted USU to be the vanguard of racial equality and were more committed to retaining the racial status quo. 33 A month before his meeting with USU’s black students, Chase received a letter from a local attorney, L. D. Naisbitt, who disapproved of USU’s recruitment of black athletes. Naisbitt wanted to “give Basket Ball [sic] to the white boys. . . . Generally speaking [black athletes] are no permanent good to the University and in most cases the University is no good to them. I appreciate the good work that is being done at the University but in my humble opinion the above practice is a mistake and national recruiting, especially colored boys should be abolished.” 34 In other words, USU should only recruit local, young white men. To be sure, an examination of the 1960–1961 basketball roster reveals that there were as many players from Columbus, Indiana, as there were from the whole state of Utah: three. Wyoming and Idaho had each supplied USU with two players. 35 Naisbitt’s explicit aversion to black players on USU’s basketball team and his disdain of national recruiting (read as recruitment of black players) in favor of local recruiting stemmed from an underlying desire to maintain the existing racial boundaries at USU and in the state of Utah.
Chase’s response to Naisbitt affirmed that the university’s policy was technically inclusive, although his main defense for the presence of black athletes in USU athletics was tied to maintaining competitiveness with other athletic programs. “As you know,” wrote Chase, “our doors are open to all academically qualified students, regardless of their nationality, race, or religion. This is the policy and spirit of the University. We segregate and eliminate students only on the basis of scholastic achievement and character.” 36 Chase wanted to keep USU’s football and basketball teams competitive, rather than “second or third-rate,” and did not want these programs to be cut for the sake of keeping the teams stocked with only white players. USU’s in-state competition, the University of Utah, had black athletes on its athletic teams, including national superstar Bill McGill, who joined the Utes basketball team in 1958. McGill, a native of Los Angeles, created an impressive résumé at the University of Utah. In 1961 he led the Utes to a NCAA Final Four appearance and, during his senior year in 1961–1962, he notched an impressive 38.8 points per game. McGill did not expect that he would be met with racism
upon his arrival from California or that Mormonism would be a part of it. In his autobiography, McGill described touring Salt Lake City and the Utah campus before school started in 1958 with Dave Costa, a member of the football team. McGill noticed the absence of black people and quickly learned that Salt Lake City operated like a segregated city. Costa took McGill to a diner that refused to serve him before Costa convinced the waitress to make an exception to the restaurant’s segregated service policy. At that point, McGill was unaware of the existing racism in Utah and in the LDS faith: “No one told me of the sad and unfortunate racism that permeates the culture of beautiful Utah. Nobody told me how Mormon scripture specifically states that black people are descendants of evil, and that black men aren’t even allowed to become full members in the lay priesthood of the Mormon Church.” 37
A two-page spread from the 1961 Buzzer. Cornell Green (top left) remains one of the most successful Aggie athletes in USU history. The Dallas Cowboys signed him in 1962, and he went on to have a long career as a defensive back for the Cowboys. Courtesy Special Collections, USU.
Chase claimed he had no issue with coaches recruiting a “Bill McGill,” although he did have a problem with the number of black athletes, particularly on the basketball team, but for a different reason than Naisbitt did: “It makes us appear before the public as an institution moving toward professionalism in athletics, and this is a situation we want to resist.” Chase knew that Utah State’s athletic teams would need to recruit athletes within and outside of the state to remain competitive with other teams in the West but worried that too many black players on the basketball team would imply that USU had a liberal recruitment policy more synonymous with professional sports than amateur athletics. 38
While university administrators dealt with queries into USU’s racial policies and pressure from alumni and trustees to maintain the status quo, debate surrounding John J. Stewart’s Mormonism and the Negro entered into the fray. As such, Mormonism became an integral part of campus discussions about race and racism. Stewart was an associate professor of journalism, editor of publications at Utah State University, and a faculty advisor to the school’s newspaper, Student Life, when he published Mormonism and the Negro in 1960. Stewart had three other books in print that displayed his knack for writing on Mormon-oriented historical themes: Joseph Smith: Democracy’s Unknown Prophet, Thomas Jefferson and the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and The Eternal Gift: The Story of the Crucifixion and Resurrection. 39 An article appearing in the December 14, 1960, Student Life featured Stewart and his new book, The Eternal Gift, wherein Stewart was quoted as saying, “In all literature there is only one story as beautiful as that of the birth of Jesus Christ at Bethlehem, and that is the story of his birth at Calvary 33 years later—the birth that is called death.” Entitled “Utah State Professor Writes about Savior,” this Student Life article demonstrates the consistent standing that LDS topics had in university news. They needed no introduction to the newspaper’s audience. Authors assumed that student readers were Latter-day Saints or already familiar with the LDS church, and LDS viewpoints and news were readily represented. 40 The author of the Stewart article illustrated this by stating that the book was “given to church and other groups during the Christmas and Easter seasons” where “church” signified the LDS church and “other groups” likely referred to minority denominations in the area. 41
Further evidence of a prominent LDS influence and readership of Student Life is the frequent advertisement of events at the LDS Institute of Religion on campus. One such notice announced Elder Howard W. Hunter as the headline speaker at the annual Joseph Smith Memorial event to be held at the LDS Institute building. This announcement appeared on the same page as the Stewart “Savior” article. The upcoming program with Hunter was to feature a chorus provided by an LDS fraternity. 42 In fact, LDS sororities and fraternities were very popular on campus and occupied several pages in the school’s yearbook. 43
At the time Stewart wrote Mormonism and the Negro, the LDS church had supplied few public statements regarding the racial temple and priesthood restrictions, creating a space for apologists like Stewart to recycle sparse quotes from past church leaders, adding their own interpretation of the practice. 44 To justify the institutional racism practiced by the LDS church, Stewart employed centuries-old white supremacist thought: “Is it not possible to see an act of mercy on the part of God in not having the Negro bear the Priesthood in this world, in view of his living under the curse of a black skin and other Negroid features? . . . Who is to say that . . . the Negro is not—so far as his temporal well being—better off not to have the Priesthood?” 45 Behind Stewart’s support for a black race restriction on priesthood was an underlying belief that being born black was also a societal curse. “In our society today,” Stewart wrote, “from which situation is the Negro suffering most: (1) In not being permitted to hold the Priesthood in the LDS Church, or (2) In having a black skin and other Negroid features which stigmatize him in the eyes of most Whites?” Stewart argued that both white America and church leaders should be absolved for their role in systematically denying African Americans equality in society and in the church; in Stewart’s contrivance, God was the one responsible for these seeming racial injustices on earth because it was he who ultimately placed a spirit in a cursed black body. “If you say this Church is unjust in not allowing the Negro to bear the Priesthood,” Stewart wrote, “you must, to be consistent, likewise say that God is even more unjust in giving him a black skin.” 46
In the conclusion of Mormonism and the Negro, Stewart encapsulated his interpretation of LDS doctrine on race in eight clear points. Stewart warned readers in his sixth point of the resulting dangers of interracial marriage: although “there is nothing in Church policy that forbids nor discourages us from extending brotherly Christian love to the Negro . . . [that] does not and should not include intermarriage, for we would bring upon our children the curse of Cain, or rather, we would bring unto ourselves children from those spirits destined to be the seed of Cain.” 47 Mormonism’s fear of interracial marriage, although similar to that found nationally, had an added element of severity because it would bring the curse of Cain into an otherwise “clean” and “untainted” lineage of practicing members. Both men and women were barred from participating in the ordinances performed in LDS temples, which Latter-day Saints believe are essential to exaltation, and denied the chance of serving proselytizing missions. Because the church prohibited black men from priesthood ordination, they were ineligible for leadership positions within the church’s lay clergy. 48 In almost every sense, having black family members would make it theologically and practically impossible to participate fully in LDS culture and religious activity.
While his statements did not carry the same weight and authority, Stewart’s views broadly represented those of church leaders. In a speech delivered at an education conference at Brigham Young University in 1954, LDS church apostle Mark E. Petersen reminded his audience what was at stake if interracial marriage became accepted and widespread:
According to Petersen, black assimilation into the white race by way of interracial marriage would result in a cursed, racially mixed society whose members would be ineligible for full church participation. LDS teachings added another layer of resistance to interracial marriage as Mormons feared the divine ramifications of creating and having more descendants of Cain on Earth.
Stewart thought he was performing a service to the USU community by writing Mormonism and the Negro, but at least two of his colleagues profoundly disagreed. After word about the book spread, professors J. Golden Taylor and T. W. Daniel wrote letters of complaint to the university’s Committee on Professional Relationships and Faculty Welfare. On January 13, 1961, Taylor and Daniel requested that Stewart be censured for the use of his university title and position on the book’s title page, an action that they argued implied the university’s sanction for content that they “violently opposed.” 50 Taylor also requested that Stewart print this letter opposing Mormonism and the Negro in the staff newspaper, a publication that Stewart was in charge of. Vice President Merrill encouraged Stewart to hold off publishing the letter in the staff newsletter, and Stewart ultimately did not publish it, in part because it could look like an attack on “the Mormon church.” In notifying Taylor of his decision, Stewart wrote,
Stewart also responded directly to the Committee on Professional Relationships and Faculty Welfare, further demonstrating his view that the university should be supportive of and subservient to Latter-day Saint racial viewpoints because Latter-day Saints were its “major public.” Stewart wrote: “It is my belief that not only this book but the others as well . . . are a credit to the University, among a large portion of its constituency—to its major public.” 52
Although Stewart wanted people both inside and outside the LDS faith to have a better understanding of its doctrine in regard to race, it was the Mormon community, USU’s “major public,” who stood to gain from an acceptance of his book and the doctrine it defended. After the university’s Committee on Professional Relations and Faculty Welfare launched an inquiry into whether Stewart should be censured for the book, Stewart wrote the committee, asking, “Is not the University’s welfare inseparably connected with the goodwill and support of its constituents, the majority of whom are members of the LDS faith and practically all of whom are Christians? And is not this goodwill and support dependent, in turn, upon the University’s properly serving that constituency and showing a proper respect for its feelings and convictions?” The value of Mormonism and the Negro to USU Latter-day Saints, in Stewart’s own words, was the reassurance that no “member need feel any shame, apology or embarrassment” about any LDS doctrine. Many LDS members “feel ill at ease or critical” of church doctrine concerning blacks, but if this doctrine was properly understood, Stewart argued, members “would not feel critical of it.” While he certainly cared about his own name and reputation as an employee of the university, Stewart defended his work because of how it would assuage the collective conscience of Latter-day Saints and the USU majority within the broader context of progressive and changing ideas of racial equality and civil rights. 53
Still, there were university students and religious groups who were concerned about racial inequality and sought ways to improve racial equality and to make international and racial minority students feel more welcome on campus. A close reading of news reports shows that the local LDS constituency largely sat on the sidelines in this movement. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that it was the Unitarian Fellowship on campus that sought a meeting with the administration to ask for clarification of USU’s racial policy. 54 Another article indicated that “a student movement aimed at doing away with race prejudice in the area is gaining momentum” and that “over 70 students met at the Unitarian Fellowship Seminar,” where interested faculty members also participated. Because of all of the attention the meeting attracted, the advisor of the Unitarian Fellowship wrote a letter to the editor of Student Life to clarify the purpose of this discussion group: “In view of the publicity given to the Logan Unitarian Fellowship in connection with recent racial tensions on the campus it is felt that a statement explaining the stand of this organization is in order. . . . Unitarians believe that only through free inquiry and thorough discussion can social problems be dealt with constructively.” The Unitarian Fellowship believed that it had a responsibility to help USU students of all races, ethnicities, and nationalities “feel wanted and accepted. Only by dealing with these problems openly, and in the democratic tradition, can we build a sound foundation for the future.” 55
Alongside the Unitarian Fellowship, the Lutheran Student Fellowship also concerned itself with improving student relations and helping minorities find equal treatment at USU. Karl Smith, president of the Lutheran Student Fellowship and chairman of the American Student–Foreign Student Relations Committee, wanted international students to experience a greater welcome than that currently offered by the community. 56 This committee—also referred to as the International–American Student Relations Committee—traveled to Salt Lake City to hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. give an address at the University of Utah on January 31, 1961. 57
This was the environment in which black student athletes such as Darnel Haney had to learn how to navigate and in which the cluster of controversies surrounding race at USU occurred. Although USU allowed African Americans to compete on its collegiate athletic teams—BYU did not have a black basketball player on its team until 1974—some of the athletes did not find social acceptance due to their minority status in race and religion. 58 As a black man from Phoenix, Haney made friends with other students from different states and traditions: “USU had a lot of kids from New York who came in for the theater programs. So I had a lot of friends in that area and . . . from out of state who were [also] dealing with the community and being kind of ousted too. If you weren’t LDS, you were not basically accepted.” 59
Even President Chase recognized that Mormon culture created exclusive boundaries that contributed to a sense of superiority. However, he continued to rationalize this situation, stating, “Mormons’ concept of one group’s being superior to another” was parallel to ancient Greeks, Judaism, and Japanese Shintoism, cultural groups who also drew ethnic boundaries to reinforce their dominance. Daryl Chase, himself a Latter-day Saint from Nephi, Utah, began his career as a seminary teacher in the church’s religious education system. He received doctoral training at the University of Chicago and became an administrator at various LDS Institutes before accepting a position as Dean of
Students at Utah State. 60 “This is not a Logan problem,” Chase went on to say, “isolated from the rest of the world as some would make it. We are talking about world problems.” 61 By Chase’s account, “Mormons” and the “Logan” population were interchangeable and, for all intents and purposes, synonymous. When Chase compared Mormonism to historic cultures, it was an attempt to justify the apparent ancient and modern impulse of social stratification. For Chase, racial issues were an inherent part of humanity and not a unique part of Mormonism or even white America.
Within Chase’s campus community, several people took to the pages of Student Life to debate the influence of Mormonism on the local culture and campus norms. Along with the administration’s issue with interracial dating, Professor Stewart’s Mormonism and the Negro was a catalyst for these discussions in the editorial section of Student Life. Dr. Jack R. Spence, a professor at USU, wrote that Stewart’s book should be regarded as just one author’s opinion and not official church doctrine. However, Spence went on to write that he was “completely opposed” to the temple and priesthood race restrictions because “in practice it does seem to give some religious support (mainly due to personal interpretations) to discrimination, and as such is morally unacceptable.” In the same issue of Student Life, another letter writer likened Mormon ideology to authoritarian rule in communist China:
Pawitter Singh Sidhu, an engineering student, read Stewart’s book and found its rationale faulty: “I fail to understand why black skin is a curse. There is no logical reasoning to justify this, except one’s racial or color prejudice with which one’s mind was poisoned from childhood by one’s environment . . . To defend this deep-rooted prejudice, one has no choice but to find protection under Biblical references.” Sidhu also compared the racism he found in Mormonism and the Negro to the caste system in India: “I request the worthy author to learn from the harm which came upon India due to the acceptance of this so-called rational explanation of a harmful teaching.” 63
Hoping to clarify the “Mormon viewpoint,” Paul Griffin, a sophomore student active in the LDS Delta fraternity, responded to Spence’s comments with his own letter to the editor. 64 While he agreed with Spence that black people should not be denied the rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Griffin affirmed that Stewart’s thesis was supported by official church doctrine. Griffin also spoke to the experience of LDS students encountering criticism of Mormon theology from faculty on campus, something he thought was inappropriate in an institution of higher learning: “I did not come to Utah State to defend my religion against some instructors on campus who preach atheism. . . . I do not go into a classroom to have the instructor call my religion trash, or to hear Jesus Christ compared with Hitler. . . . No instructor has the right to raise false contention against any group, for this represents in my mind, bigotry and prejudice no different than that to which many have already objected.” 65
The public discussion of Stewart’s book offered an opportunity for other opposing viewpoints to assert their criticism of Mormon hegemony. Underscoring Haney’s view that the predominant LDS culture was exclusive, Peter Bunting, a member of the Forestry Club and a transfer student from George Washington University (GWU), compared the two campus environments in a letter to Student Life. Bunting claimed that a GWU student would “make an earnest effort to understand those around him,” something he “found lacking in many of the people in Utah, particularly those persons of the LDS Church.” Bunting went on to say that “until these people are willing to give their time, and possibly money, in an earnest effort to understand, tolerate, and work with the people outside their own minute sphere, that the closed-mindedness and prejudices that are now present will continue and will be a constant hinderance [sic] in the social maturing of the persons having them.” 66
Other letters to the editor of Student Life continued to shift the conversation toward the larger problems they had with the dominant Mormon culture. Bob Atlas, a member of the “open-minded” pseudo-fraternity Mu that included women, wrote: “There is separation of state in this nation. If there isn’t, maybe Utah should become the Mormon Republic, instead of one of the fifty states . . . if you really believe what you preach, and have verifications, the best minds in the world couldn’t change your beliefs. Why not give Utah a chance to come up from 1861 to 1961 before 1962 arrives.” 67 Tom Lyons added, “In my opinion, all of these letters reflect the stolid parochialism that can keep Utah State from being a first-rate university—a place where there is a free interchange of ideas from all over and not merely a reflection of the local culture.” 68
This “local culture” had a profound impact on the scholarly career of the historian Jan Shipps, who came to Utah State with her husband and son in 1960. Shipps witnessed the campus conversation about race and LDS doctrine. Her nine-month experience living within the predominantly Mormon community of Logan while finishing her bachelor’s degree sparked her curiosity about Mormonism and served as a catalyst for her productive career. Shipps wrote about this telling year in her book Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years among the Mormons, noting both the publication of Mormonism and the Negro and conversations within the student body about interracial dating between African American athletes and white women. 69 These two events influenced her perception of the markers of Mormon community and identity before the LDS church undertook some major changes and saw considerable international growth in the twentieth century. 70
The 1960–1961 school year at Utah State University provides fruitful grounds to examine Utah’s twentieth-century racial history. Unanticipated debate ensued in the aftermath of university president Daryl Chase’s meeting with black students in January 1961. Interested persons on both sides questioned the university’s racial policy. USU’s administration cited a policy of dealing with students and not race and yet responded by placing the responsibility of handling such issues on the few male black students who were already precariously navigating the community’s racial sensitivities. While the university recruited black athletes to improve its competitive edge against other athletic programs, President Chase considered restricting scholarships available for black student athletes on the basketball team as a way of protecting USU’s racial image and non-professional sports status. The simultaneous arrival of Stewart’s Mormonism and the Negro and its attendant dialogue and backlash was opined a “fiasco” by USU administrators confronting racial inequality on campus for the first time. 71 Mormonism and the Negro prompted interesting discussions of what kind of academic and religious freedom should be offered to faculty and students of the LDS faith on a secular campus within the predominantly LDS setting of Logan, Utah. This episode ultimately sheds light on the ways that LDS doctrine and practice, combined with racism and conservative politics, affected African Americans and shaped racial conflict in mid-twentieth-century Utah. It also demonstrates how racism within Mormonism cannot be truthfully told as a separate story in Utah history and politics.
Notes
1 Utah State University, Buzzer (Logan, UT: ASUSU, 1961), 97, Special Collections and Archives, Merrill- Cazier Library, Utah State University, Logan, Utah (MCUSU); Hank More, “Ags Prepare for Sun Bowl Duel,” Utah State Student Life, December 14, 1960; “USU Basketball Chief Coaches Final Season,” Utah State Student Life, February 14, 1961, 1.
2 John Hill, “Local Activities Are Printed in Papers throughout America,” Utah State Student Life, February 28, 1961, 2.
3 John J. Stewart, Mormonism and the Negro (Orem, UT: Benchmark Division, Community Press, 1960).
4 Eric Stene, “The African American Community of Ogden, Utah: 1910–1950” (master’s thesis, Utah State University, 1994); Margaret Judy Maag, “Discrimination Against the Negro in Utah and Institutional Efforts to Eliminate It” (master’s thesis, University of Utah, 1971); F. Ross Peterson, “‘Blindside’: Utah on the Eve of Brown v. Board of Education,” Utah Historical Quarterly 73, no. 1 (2005): 4–20; Gary James Bergera, “‘This Time of Crisis’: The Race-Based Anti-BYU Athletic Protests of 1968–1971,” Utah Historical Quarterly 81, no. 3 (2013): 204–229.
5 For more information on the integration of the University of Georgia, see Robert A. Pratt, We Shall Not Be Moved: The Desegregation of the University of Georgia (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2002). For news footage of interviews with students supporting segregation, see “Series of WSB-TV Newsfilm Clips of Statements by Georgia Governor Ernest Vandiver, Athens Mayor Ralph M. Snow, Georgia State Treasurer George B. Hamilton, Lieutenant Governor Garland T. Byrd, and Mrs. Alice Stancil Regarding Integration of the University of Georgia,” Georgia, 1961 January, WSB-TV newsfilm collection, reel 0048, 00:00/38:03, Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia, accessed August 30, 2019, crdl.usg.edu/id:ugabma_wsbn _wsbn38256.
6 France Davis, Light in the Midst of Zion: A History of Black Baptists in Utah (Salt Lake City: University Publishing, 1997), 114.
7 For more information about the characteristics of the civil rights movement in the West, see Quintard Taylor, In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528–1990 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 278–310.
8 For an excellent review of interracial marriage laws in Utah, see Patrick Q. Mason, “The Prohibition of Interracial Marriage in Utah, 1883–1963,” Utah Historical Quarterly 76, no. 2 (2008): 108–131.
9 “USU Inquiry Finds Race Rumors False,” Deseret News, January 20, 1961, found in box 36, fd. 5, Daryl Chase Papers, 1954–1968, USU_3.1/10-2, MCUSU (hereafter Chase Papers).
10 “Head of USU Clarifies Race Stand,” Salt Lake Tribune, February 4, 1961, found in Chase Papers.
11 Robert S. Bird, “Integration—And a Campus Romance: A Reporter’s Close-Up of an Incident at a Northern College,” U.S. News and World Report, February 22, 1960, 101, included in Chase Papers.
12 Bird, “Integration—And a Campus Romance,” 100, 102.
13 “Head of USU Clarifies Race Stand.”
14 “Truth Plays No Part as Rumors Run Rampant,” Utah State University Student Life, January 20, 1961.
15 M. R. Merrill to Daryl Chase, January 21, 1961, box 36, fd. 5, Chase Papers.
16 If the whole campus was indeed “seething,” more activist responses would have been generated. Only about seventy students and staff showed up to a subsequent meeting to discuss racial issues on campus.
17 Jacob W. Kijne, letter to the editor, Utah State Student Life, January 24, 1961. Biographical information about Kijne can be found in Advancements in IIMI’s Research, 1989–91: A Selection of Papers Presented at Internal Program Reviews (Singapore: Stamford Press, 1992), 264, and in his curriculum vitae, accessed September 20, 2019, tools.bard.edu/files/events/file.php ?eid=101963.
18 Although Utah State was a predominantly white institution, there was a considerable international constituency in the student body. During Chase’s tenure as president, this international student population grew tremendously. In 1952, there were 111 international students. By 1966, there were 565, many of whom were from Iran. At the 1961 commencement at the end of the school year, Utah State awarded four of its twelve doctoral degrees to international students from Iraq, India, Egypt, and Canada. Several more master’s degrees were awarded to international students, including students from Sudan, Iran, Pakistan, Thailand, and Syria. See Robert Parson, “International Students,” in Encyclopedic History of Utah State University (2009), Library Faculty and Staff Publications, paper 121; Utah State University, Buzzer (Logan, UT: ASUSU, 1966), 154, MCUSU; and Utah State University, Annual Commencement, June 9, 1961, USU Digital Commons, accessed August 30, 2019, digitalcommons.usu.edu /commencement.
19 Untitled note, January 21, 1961, box 36, fd. 5, Chase Papers.
20 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva argues that colorblind racism took the place of state-legitimated discrimination in the post–Civil Rights era to reinforce white privilege. I use the word “proto-colorblind racism” to describe USU’s race policy because there was structural support of white privilege at USU without outright segregation policies. See Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America, 4th ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014).
21 Untitled note, January 21, 1961, Chase Papers.
22 “Negro Students on Campus,” n.d., box 36, fd. 5, Chase Papers.
23 Crosschecking the names in this GPA report with the 1960–1961 men’s basketball roster confirms that Chase wanted this information that school year, sometime after January 26. “Negro Students on Campus,” n.d., Chase Papers, and “Utah State Men’s Basketball All- Time Roster,” USU Men’s Basketball, accessed October 27, 2016, http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/ust /sports/m-baskbl/auto_pdf/2015-16/misc_non_event /USUMBBAlltimeRoster.pdf.
24 “Darnel L. Haney Interview,” Facing the Color Line: Race and Ethnicity in Cache Valley, digital exhibit online, accessed August 30, 2019, 1, digitalcommons.usu .edu/usudiglib/8.
25 Darnel L. Haney, “Factors Contributing to the Black High School Dropout Rate” (master’s thesis, Utah State University, 1973).
26 In 1966, Dr. James Coleman, a sociologist from Johns Hopkins University, published a survey on the state of American education to satisfy a requirement from the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The data from Coleman’s research suggested that by the time African American students reached twelfth grade, they were approximately three-and-a-quarter years behind in school compared to their white counterparts. More recent studies have affirmed that racial discrimination persisted and still persists at predominantly white institutions of higher learning and that black students are more likely to experience class and race-based microaggressions from their fellow white students. Black student organizations offer support to minority students, but Utah State did not have a black student union until 1969. See Haney, interview, 7; James S. Coleman, “Equality of Educational Opportunity” (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1966), 273; Joe R. Feagin, “The Continuing Significance of Racism: Discrimination Against Black Students in White Colleges,” Journal of Black Studies 22, no. 4 (1992): 546–78; Erica M. Morales, “Intersectional Impact: Black Students and Race, Gender and Class Microaggressions in Higher Education,” Race, Gender and Class 21, no. 3/4 (2014): 48–66; and “Black Student Union,” Encyclopedic History of Utah State University.
27 Wayne B. Garff to Daryl Chase, February 6, 1961, box 36, fd. 5, Chase Papers.
28 Pamela S. Perlich, Utah Minorities: The Story Told by 150 Years of Census Data (Salt Lake City: Bureau of Economic and Business Research Monograph, David S. Eccles School of Business, University of Utah, October 2002), 8.
29 “Memorandum,” January 25, 1961, box 36, fd. 5, Chase Papers.
30 “Haney Interview, 5.” From Haney’s point of view, opportunities for civil rights activism in Logan were nonexistent. Even if Logan’s small group of African Americans were able to find a way to be involved, Haney felt that it would likely have jeopardized their athletic careers and upset campus administrators and the community.
31 “Truth Plays No Part.”
32 Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, “The 1960s and the Transformation of Campus Cultures,” History of Education Quarterly 26 (Spring 1986): 1–38. As Horowitz points out, student activism on college campuses was not a 1960s phenomenon; wealthy, elite students had caused stirs on campus since the late-nineteenth century. However, Horowitz also argues that “no one surveying the campus scene in 1959 could have predicted the 1960s.”
33 “USU Inquiry Finds Race Rumors False.”
34 L. D. Naisbitt to Chase, December 16, 1960, box 36, fd. 5, Chase Papers.
35 “Utah State Men’s Basketball All-Time Rosters.” 36 Daryl Chase to L. D. Naisbitt, January 19, 1961, box
36, fd. 5, Chase Papers.
37 Kyle Goon, “Utah Basketball: Utes Pioneer Bill Mc- Gill Dies at 74,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 12, 2014; “Billy McGill to be Inducted into Pac-12 Hall of Honor,” Utah Utes, accessed February 21, 2014, utahutes.com /news/2014/2/21/Billy_McGill_to_be_Inducted_into _Pac_12_Hall_of_Honor.aspx; Billy McGill and Eric Brach, Billy “the Hill” and the Jump Hook: The Autobiography of a Forgotten Basketball Legend (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013), 85–88, 89–90.
38 Chase to L. D. Naisbitt, January 19, 1961, box 36, fd. 5, Chase Papers.
39 John J. Stewart, Joseph Smith: Democracy’s Unknown Prophet (Salt Lake City: Mercury Publishing, 1960), Thomas Jefferson and the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1959), and The Eternal Gift: The Story of the Crucifixion and Resurrection (Orem, UT: Bookmark, 1960).
40 A great example can be found in the press coverage of the dedication of the LDS Institute building prominently situated near the student center on campus. See “Church Official Presides: LDS Dedicates Institute,” Utah State Student Life, November 11, 1960.
41 “Utah State Professor Writes about Savior,” Utah State Student Life, December 14, 1960.
42 It is hard to know the exact proportion of Latter-day Saint students at USU during this period. In 2013, the LDS population at USU was about 86 percent, while the LDS population of Utah as a whole was about 60 percent. Research by Utah demographer Pam Perlich has demonstrated that the LDS population has declined over time. See Lindsay Whitehurst, “As Mormon Missionaries Leave, Utah Colleges Look Out of State for Students,” Salt Lake Tribune, March 8, 2014, and Celeste Tholen Rosenlof, “60% of Utahns LDS in 2013, Gallup Says,” KSL, February 24, 2014, ksl.com/?sid=28799562.
43 Buzzer, 1961, 84–94.
44 The First Presidency’s most recent statement on the matter was made in 1949. The First Presidency reiterated Brigham Young’s belief that “Negroes” were cursed descendants of Cain and concluded by affirming that dark skin was a “handicap” and a consequence of premortal “conduct.” “Under this principle,” the First Presidency stated, “there is no injustice whatsoever in this deprivation as to the holding of the priesthood by the Negroes.” Although First Presidency counselor Hugh B. Brown offered some remarks in support of equal civil rights in October 1963 as part of his general conference address, the First Presidency did not make another statement on the matter until December 1969 when it announced that “Negroes, while spirit children of a common Father . . . were not yet to receive the priesthood, for reasons which we believe are known to God.” See documents in Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst, eds., The Mormon Church and Blacks: A Documentary History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015), 64–66, 74–76, 79–83.
45 Stewart, Mormonism and the Negro, 49.
46 Stewart, 48.
47 Stewart, 53.
48 Even though women in the LDS church cannot be ordained to the priesthood, they can participate in temple ordinances. Black women, however, were disqualified from receiving temple covenants and were also ineligible to serve proselytizing missions. The first black woman to serve an LDS mission, Mary Frances Sturlaugson, was called shortly after the priesthood was extended to “all worthy males” in June 1978. See Golden A. Buchmiller, “3 Black Members Called on Missions,” Church News, September 16, 1978.
49 Mark E. Petersen, “Race Problems—As They Affect the Church,” typescript, fd. 1, Mark E. Petersen speech, 1954, Ms0376, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.
50 Annette Peterson to Daryl Chase, “Departmental Memorandum,” April 25, 1961, Chase Papers.
51 John Stewart to J. Golden Taylor, February 18, 1961, Chase Papers. Emphasis mine.
52 John Stewart to Committee on Professional Relations and Faculty Welfare, January 23, 1961, 6, Chase Papers.
53 Stewart to Committee, January 23, 1961, 6, 1; Stewart, Mormonism and the Negro, 7.
54 “Says Racial Dating ‘Very Unwise,’” Salt Lake Tribune, February 4, 1961.
55 Bruce O. Watkins, “Fellowship Explained,” Utah State Student Life, January 31, 1961.
56 “Senate Hears Committee Plan for Better Student Relations,” Utah State Student Life, January 27, 1961.
57 John Cannon, “Recent Events Aim Toward Better Relations,” Utah State Student Life, February 3, 1961.
58 “First at Brigham Young,” New York Times, May 4, 1974. Senior Charles Belcher, one of the African American students who competed on the USU track team, was the student body second vice president that school year. According to Haney, Belcher was largely elected by the international student body. He earned his bachelor’s degree from USU and then went on to earn a master’s degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary and a PhD from Ashland Theological Seminary. After his death in 2008, Congresswoman Barbara Lee honored Belcher in Congress. See Buzzer, 1961, 285; Haney, interview, 7; and “Honoring Reverend Charles Belcher,” 110th Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 154, no. 141 (September 8, 2008), E1710–E1711, accessed August 30 2019, congress.gov/crec/2008/09/08/CREC-2008-09 -08.pdf.
59 Haney, interview, 6.
60 “Portrait of a President,” USU Magazine, Winter 1966, 6–9.
61 Untitled note, January 21, 1961, Chase Papers.
62 Jack R. Spence and George Meyer, letters to the editor, both in Utah State Student Life, February 10, 1961.
63 P. S. Sidhu, letter to the editor, Utah State Student Life, March 7, 1961; Buzzer, 1961, 196–97.
64 Buzzer, 1961, 87, 239.
65 Paul Griffin, letter to the editor, Utah State Student Life, February 14, 1961.
66 Peter Bunting, letter to the editor, Utah State Student Life, February 24, 1961.
67 Bob Atlas, letter to the editor, Utah State Student Life, March 10, 1961; Buzzer, 1961, 207.
68 Tom Lyon, letter to the editor, Utah State Student Life, February 21, 1961.
69 Jan Shipps, Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years among the Mormons (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 371–72, 387.
70 Shipps, Sojourner, 364–67. 71 M. R. Merrill to Daryl Chase, January 21, 1961, Chase Papers.
