Episode 810: Dr Matthew Harris, New Book Called “Second-Class Saints”

Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Richard Ostler

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 839 Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2025

⏱️ 84 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My friend Dr. Matthew L Harris (Historian, Colorado State University) joins us to talk about his powerful new book called “Second-Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality”— a fifteen-year labor of love. In Matt’s book (which was a powerful read for me), he draws on never-before-seen private papers of LDS apostles and church presidents—including Spencer W. Kimball to help us understand the complexity of ending the ban—something that President Kimball considered long before becoming Church President. Matt talks about why the ban started, who started it, how it became official doctrine for decades, and what shifted to cause church leaders to end the ban. Matt also talks about why ending the ban didn’t end racist teachings about black people—how all those prior teachings have now been refuted—but still might exists in our culture. Matt discusses key questions like was the ban doctrine or policy? Was it “just not time yet to end the ban”? And other important questions. Matt also talks about the importance of proximity by senior church leaders to those hurt by the ban and how those stories/experience changed hearts and were key to considering lifting it. Matt also shares insights on possible parallels to the priesthood ban and the experience of LGB Latter-day Saints who may also feel like “second-class saints”. I learned so much from Matt’s book and loved having him on the podcast. I encourage everyone to read his book and then consider what each of us can do to better support those of the margins. Links: Matt’s book at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/019769571X Matt’s webpage: https://matthewlharris.org/

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome listeners to another episode of Listen, Learn, and Love, hosted by Richard Osler.
0:08.5	My guest on today's podcast is my new friend and author, Dr. Matthew Harris.
0:14.9	Welcome to the podcast, Matt.
0:17.0	Thanks, Richard. I'm happy to be here today.
0:19.4	Just a little bit about, he is Dr. Harris. I'm going to call Matt for the rest of the podcast,
0:25.6	but I just wanted us to remember that about him. He's a historian. He's at Colorado State University in Pueblo.
0:33.9	He's been there since 2005, so that's coming up on 20 years. He got a couple
0:38.9	undergraduate degrees from BYU, got a PhD from Syracuse University in history, and has
0:46.2	written a lot of books in looking at LDS Mormon history. I'm going to use the word Mormon,
0:52.1	because that's how we usually refer to Mormon history. I recognize the church is asking to use Latter-day Saints, and I use that too, but
0:58.5	he has written a book called Second Class Saints, Blacks Mormons, and the struggle for racial
1:05.3	equality. And I've had a lot of authors on the podcast, and maybe one out of 10 I've had time to read their book before the podcast because I've got this gigantic stack.
1:14.6	And we still get authors on the podcast, but I just sort of say I haven't read your book.
1:19.3	But Matthew's different.
1:21.7	I've been hearing about this book for a while, and I did read it over the last month.
1:25.7	And it's one of the very finest books I've
1:28.3	read. And I learned so much about LDS Church history around the priest had been, and my respect
1:35.3	for historians continues to grow, because of their work, really fact-based work, to get to the
1:42.0	primary sources to tell us the story of what really went on
1:45.0	without kind of an agenda.
1:47.7	And so I'm just honored to have Matt on the podcast.
1:50.5	I've been looking forward to this.
	...

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