Introduction

The purpose of the following examination is to document and report the private and public views of my grandfather, Ezra Taft Benson, on what he derisively described as the “so-called civil rights movement,” the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other related racial issues

Based on the information from a variety of sources (including many of my own personal encounters with him), it is conclusive that:

–Ezra Taft Benson was a racist, as amply demonstrated by his own words, actions, beliefs and associations

–Typical of many White racists, Ezra Taft Benson was condescendingly tolerant of Blacks—as long as they “knew their place” and behaved as he insisted they should.

–By contrast, Ezra Taft Benson was viciously accusatory and patronizingly dismissive toward Blacks when they engaged in activities that he viewed as politically in opposition to his (and, by extension, God’s) interests and purposes. He frequently portrayed Blacks as a threat to the American Way of Life—at least as he defined it
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Making the Case: An Overview of Ezra Taft Benson’s Racist Views

As proof of the assertion that my grandfather was, indeed, a racial bigot, the evidence will be examined from the following perspectives:

–His public pronouncements on the U.S. civil rights movement

–His public pronouncements on the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

–His personal correspondence expressing his anti-King views

–The personal correspondence from anti-King and anti-civil rights Mormons to Ezra Taft Benson, evidencing their own racial bias, as well as their confidence that in my grandfather they had found a kindred spirit

–Personal correspondence to me from racist Mormons, indicating their support for Ezra Taft Benson’s anti-Black, anti-civil rights views

–Personal correspondence from LDS Church members to Mormon Church leadership during Ezra Taft Benson’s term as Church president, regarding efforts to pass an official Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday—and the Church’s official response.

–Public associations by Ezra Taft Benson with known segregationists and racists

–Political alliances by Ezra Taft Benson with overtly racist politicians—notably, Strom Thurmond and George Wallace

–Correspondence from the First Presidency to Ezra Taft Benson, directing him to segregate White and Black Mormon women in Relief Societies within Washington, D.C. stake when he was serving as the area’s stake president

–Personal notes and documents from the private files of Ezra Taft Benson, indicating his racist views

–Personal conversations between myself and Ezra Taft Benson on racial matters

–A White supremacist book from the personal library of Ezra Taft Benson
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Ezra Taft Benson’s Public Statements on the U.S. Civil Rights Movement

My grandfather regarded the U.S. civil rights movement as part of a Communist plot to destroy America.

Through far right-wing publishing houses and book chains owned by the Mormon Church, he warned that the aim of the U.S. civil rights movement was to “create the animosity, fear and hatred between large segments of our people that would be necessary beginning ingredients for their revolution.”

He warned that civil rights grievances by African-Americans were being exploited by the Communists “to agitate blacks into hating whites and whites into hating blacks.”

He declared that the U.S. movement for equal civil rights was fueled by “false stories and rumors about injustices and brutality” which, he said, served to “[c]reate martyrs for both sides” while playing “upon mass emotions until they smolder with resentment and hatred.”

My grandfather saw the U.S. civil rights movement, in larger conspiratorial context, as a leading element in a vast, ominous and active Communist plot designed to “overthrow established government” through “widespread anarchy,” the sparking of “a nation-wide civil war” and the assassination of “anti-Communist leaders of both races.”

He warned Americans: “It is happening here! . . . THE COMMUNIST PROGRAM FOR REVOLUTION IN AMERICAN HAS BEEN IN PROGRESS FOR MANY YEARS AND IS FAR ADVANCED.”

This Moscow-orchestrated plan, he declared from his General Conference pulpit, was being implemented on American soil “[u]sing unidentified Communist agents and non-Communist sympathizers in key positions in government, in communications media and in mass organizations such as labor unions and civil rights groups [which] demand more and more government power as the solution to all civil rights problems. Total government is the objective of Communism. Without calling it by name, [they] build Communism piece by piece through mass pressures for Presidential decrees, court orders and legislation which appear to be aimed at improving civil rights and other social reforms.”

Ezra Taft Benson saw the American South as the initial battleground in Communist efforts to establish a foothold before spreading northward. These attempts, he warned, were designed for “splitting away the ‘Black Belt,’ those Southern states in which the Negro held a majority, and calling them a Negro Soviet Republic.” He warned Americans to be on guard for African-Americans who had “migrated to the Northern states,” where they had likewise “applied this same strategy to the so-called ‘ghetto’ areas in the North.”

He reassured White patriots, however, that even “[i]f Communism comes to America . . . the Negro represents only 10 percent of the population. In any all-out race war which might be triggered, there isn’t a chance in the world that Communist-led Negro guerilla units could permanently hold on to the power centers of government, even if they could capture them in the first place.”

Despite his assurances of security in White numbers, Ezra Taft Benson nonetheless reminded Americans that Blacks might still well attempt a Communist overthrow of the United States:

“It now seems probable that the Communists are determined to use force and violence to its fullest, coupled with a weakening of the economy and military setbacks abroad, in an effort to create as much havoc as possible to weaken American internally, and to create the kind of psychological desperation in the minds of all citizens that will lead them to accept blindly government measures which actually help the Communists in their take-over.”

In a throwback to the inquisitional days of McCarthyism, Ezra Taft Benson urged that “duly authorized legislative investigating committees launch an even more exhaustive study and expose the secret Communists who are directing the Civil Rights movement,” insisting that “[t]he same needs to be done with militant anti-Negro groups” which, he claimed, were being fit “perfectly into the Communist plan” to “intensify inter-racial friction.”

In fighting insidious Communist encroachment on America, my grandfather urged that Americans remain ever-vigilant against enslavement by Big Government. He urged that “our local police . . . not be encumbered by Civilian Review Boards, or asked to be social workers.” He warned the police “not to accept grants from the Federal Government,” warning his fellow citizens that if they did, it could well “lead to the eventual creation of a national police force” that would be used by the Communists “to hold the people in line.”

(Ezra Taft Benson, “Civil Rights: Tool of Communist Deception,” adaptation from address of same title, delivered at General Conference, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, 29 September 1967, reprinted by National Research Group, American Fork, Utah, , pp. 1-4; see also, “Civil Rights: Tool of Communist Deception,” reprint of same “address by The Honorable Ezra Taft Benson” [Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1968, emphasis in original)
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Ezra Taft Benson’s Public Statements on the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

My grandfather considered the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., to have been a disreputable individual, a dishonorable and dishonest man and a Communist.

Of him, he wrote:

“The man who is generally recognized as the leader of the so-called civil rights movement today in America is a man who has lectured at a Communists training school, who has solicited funds through Communist sources, who hired a Communist as a top-level aide, who has affiliated with Communist fronts, who is often praised in the Communist press and who unquestionably parallels the Communist line. This same man advocates the breaking of the law and has been described by J. Edgar Hoover as ‘the most notorious liar in the country.’ . . .

”Would anyone deny that the President [Lyndon Johnson], the chief law enforcer in the United States, belies his position by playing gracious host to the late Martin L. King who has preached disobedience to laws which in his opinion are unjust?”

(Ezra Taft Benson, “It Can Happen Here,” in An Enemy Hath Done This, Jerreld L. Newquist, comp. [Salt Lake City, Utah: Parliament Publishers, 1969], pp. 103, 310)

Reacting to President Johnson’s declaration of a national day of mourning two days after the murder of Rev. King, Ezra Taft Benson had nothing but opprobrium for the slain civil rights leader.

In a letter to Mormon hotelier J. Willard Marriott, he claimed that “Martin Luther King had been affiliated with at least the following officially recognized Communist fronts,” three of which he then went on to list.

In the same letter, he coldly warned Marriott that “the Communists will use Mr. King’s death for as much yardage as possible.”

A year later, in another letter to Marriott, my grandfather continued his attack on the dead Black minister, writing that “the kindest thing that could be said about Martin Luther King is that he was an effective Communist tool. Personally, I think he was more than that.”

(D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power [Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1997], pp. 100, 113, 463, 471)

My grandfather also was convinced that Dr. King’s assassination was carried out by Communists themselves, in an effort to trigger civil war in America.

In his book, An Enemy Hath Done This, he quoted from an article by Susan L. M. Huck, originally published in the John Birch magazine, American Opinion:

“Okay, let’s take the gloves off. This insurrection didn’t just happen. It was a set-up—just as the assassination of Martin Luther King was a set-up. The Communists and their Black Power fanatics have been working to create just such a situation for years. They even TOLD us what they were planning to do, again and again, as they did it. . . .

“And remember, the Reds and their Black Power troops have promised us that this is only the beginning! Stokely has said that his forces plan to burn down America.

“They’re sure going to try.

“How do you stop it? It’s very simple. You stop Communist racial agitation; you arrest the leaders for conspiracy to commit murder, arson and burglary, prove their guilt in a court of law and lock them up. And you free the hands of our police so that the can PREVENT rioting and looting and arson by those citizens now convinced by the actions of our ‘Liberals’ that theft, incendiarism and assault will be tolerated.

“Don’t kid yourself. The people who are behind all of this mean to have a civil war. We either stop them now or they will escalate this thing.”

(quoted in Ezra Taft Benson, An Enemy Hath Done This, p. 335, original emphasis)

My grandfather’s hatred of Dr. King had its effects. The reaction of my own parents to the murder of Dr. King reflected by grandfather’s attitudes.

Dr. King was assassinated on 4 April 1968, which happened to be my sister’s birthday. I remember that day, most notably by the fact that no mourning went on in our home over his death.

Earlier in the evening, I had seen on our television news broadcasts of race riots erupting in major cities across the country in response Dr. King’s murder. I remember the columns of black smoke rising from inner cities set aflame by Blacks outraged at the brutal murder of their hero—and of their hope.

But in the Benson home that night, we had more important things to do—like watching my sister blow out the candles on her cake, singing her “Happy Birthday” and passing out presents.

Years later, when the state of Arizona was embroiled in its own controversy over enacting a publicly-funded state holiday honoring the legacy of Dr. King (a holiday which had earlier been rescinded by Mormon governor Evan Mecham), I was reminded again of my grandfather’s disdain for the slain civil rights leader.

At that time, I was actively involved in supporting the re-establishment of a state holiday in honor of Dr. King. Together with my wife Mary Ann and our children, we marched in peaceful, pro-King demonstrations in Phoenix and Mesa (the latter being a hotbed of noisy anti-King sentiment largely fueled by Mormon political extremists). We joined thousands of others in multi-ethnic crowds, waving American flags, carrying pictures of Rev. King, chanting slogans in unison with megaphone-toting parade leaders and singing “We Shall Overcome.”

One particular year–on the anniversary of Dr. King’s birthday–after having spent the morning participating in another public demonstration in behalf of a state holiday in his honor, I received a phone call from my mother.

She asked me how I had spent my day. I informed her that I had taken our youngest daughter, Audrey, down to a King Day rally earlier in the morning, where I had hoisted her on my shoulders and joined with the throngs in petitioning for, and celebrating in behalf of, the re-establishment of an official King Day.

My mother replied, “Stephen, your grandfather would not have approved of that.”

Of course, he would not have.

That was one of the main reasons for doing it.

In the wake of the King-bashing legacy left behind by my grandfather, I felt my parents could benefit from some consciousness raising on matters of civil rights.

So, for my father’s birthday, I gave him a small music box that featured a likeness of Rev. King and played “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

My father politely thanked me and placed it on the desk in his home office.

When visiting my parents’ home sometime later, I noticed that the music box was nowhere to be seen. I asked my father what had happened to it.

In a curiously-worded response, he said, “My wife cleans up my office and puts things away so that the grandchildren won’t break them.”

I did not find that explanation particularly persuasive, given that my dad’s office happened to be cluttered with all kinds of figurines and other fragile decorative objects (including a large porcelain American eagle which I had also given him).

As far as I could tell, the only item missing from his office was a little music box paying homage to a certain prominent African-American civil rights and religious leader.
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Correspondence from Mormons to Ezra Taft Benson Concerning Rev. King—and the Mormon Church’s Official Response

By their racism, ye shall know them.

My grandfather’s hate-filled utterances directed at Rev. King brought like-minded rank-and-file LDS bigots out of the woodwork, rallying to his anti-Communist/anti-civil rights cause.
http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon409.htm

But to also answer your questions specifically:

1. No.
2. No.
3. No.

Skeptic

Brigham Young
Journal of Discourses January 2, 1870 Vol. 13 pg. 95

“I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men, that they may not call Scripture.”

Mormon Church and Racism

Brigham Young Death on the Spot for Interracial marriage
Brigham Young March 8, 1863 JofD 10:110

“Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? It the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.”

Brigham Young December 3, 1854
JofD 2:142-143
“You may hand out to them gold, you may feed and clothe them, but it is impossible to convert the Jews, until the Lord, God Almighty does it.”

“When all the other children of Adam have had the privilege of receiving the Priesthood, and of coming into the kingdom of God, and of being redeemed from the four quarters of the earth, and have received their resurrection from the dead, then it will he time enough to remove the curse from Cain and his posterity.”

October 9, 1859, Brigham Young: “You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind. The first man that committed the odious crime of killing one of his brethren will be cursed the longest of any one of the children of Adam. Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race — that they should be the ‘servant of servants;’ and they will be, until that curse is removed; and the Abolitionists cannot help it, nor in the least alter that decree” (Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, p. 290).

Brigham Young Blacks from the seed of Cain
Journal of Discourses
Volume 11:269
“Why are so many of the inhabitants of the earth cursed with a sin of blackness? It comes in consequence of their fathers rejecting the power of the Holy Priesthood, and the law of God. They will go down to death. And when all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the Holy Priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to. The volition of the creature is free; this is a law of their existence, and the Lord cannot violate his own law; were he to do that, he would cease to be God. He has placed life and death before his children, and it is for them to choose. If they choose life, they receive the blessings of life; if they chose death, they must abide the penalty.”

“And after the flood we are told that the curse that had been
pronounced upon Cain was continued through Ham’s wife, as he had married a
wife of that seed. And why did it pass through the flood? Because it was
necessary that THE DEVIL SHOULD HAVE A REPRESENTATION UPON THE EARTH as well
as God….” LDS “Prophet” John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 22, p.
304, 1881, emphasis added.
Note: Taylor claimed that blacks were Satan’s representatives on Earth.

Also I’m curious of your term anti-Mormon

1. Does the term imply that a disagreement or criticism of Mormonism stems from an unfounded “anti-Mormon prejudice?
2. Does the term stem from legitimate factual information examining Mormonism?
3. Does the term apply to anyone who dares question the only True Church guided by a prophet of God?

As a suggestion, try replacing “anti-Mormon” with “pro-honesty and pro-objectivity” when you consider your terms.