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contents

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5 The Last State to Honor MLK:
Utah and the Quest for Racial Justice
By Matthew L. Harris and Madison S. Harris

22 Race, Latter-day Saint Doctrine, and Athletics 1

at Utah State University, 1960–1961
By Jessica Marie Nelson

38 Utah in the Green Book :

Segregation and the Hospitality Industry in the Beehive State
By Christine Cooper-Rompato

58 Private Visions:
Outsider Art on Utah’s Cultural Landscape
By Roger Roper

DEPARTMENTS
3 In This Issue
77 Public History: UQHS
79 Reviews
83 2019 Award Winners
84 Contributors
85 In Memoriam: Floyd A. O’Neil
88 Utah In Focus

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 REVIEWS
79 The Civilian Conservation Corps in Utah:
Remembering Nine Years of Achievement, 1933–1942
By Kenneth W. Baldridge
Reviewed by Michael R. Polk

80 The Mormon Handcart Migration:

“Tounge nor pen can never tell the sorrow”
By Candy Moulton
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Reviewed by Gene A. Sessions

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notices
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82 My Life in Carbon County in the 1950s

By Ronald G. Watt

82 Westward with Fremont:

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The Story of Solomon Carvalho

By Sophie Greenspan

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 In This Issue
Joyful young faces appear on the cover of this
Utah Historical Quarterly, portraits of African
Americans attending World War II–era dances
in Salt Lake City. They are glimpses of a state
on the threshold of change. As with the rest of
the United States, Utah has grappled with race
relations since its founding in the nineteenth
century; well into the twentieth century, both
custom and law made the state a difficult envi-
ronment for African Americans and other peo-
ple of color. The social and structural shifts set
in motion by the war, the civil rights movement,
and the upheavals of the 1960s and beyond,
however, opened the door for some improve-
ment. This issue of UHQ explores race and
agency in interracial relationships, public life,
and athletics during those tumultuous years.
In our first article, Matthew Harris and Madison
Harris ask why Utah took so long to honor Mar-
tin Luther King, Jr. by naming a holiday for him.
Ronald Reagan first created the federal King
holiday in 1983, and, by 1999, every state but
Utah had followed suit. The Harrises argue that
the notion that King was a communist—which
was promulgated by such national figures as
J. Edgar Hoover and Robert Welch and repeated
by Ezra Taft Bensen and Cleon Skousen, prom-
inent Latter-day Saints—created an atmosphere
in which many state legislators were loath to
acknowledge the civil rights leader by name. Af-
ter years of debate, much unfavorable attention,
and the efforts of Jeanetta Williams, Gordon B.
Hinckley, Robert Sykes, and others, the state fi-
nally designated a King holiday in 2000.
Jessica Nelson, in our second article, analyzes
a particularly turbulent time at Utah State Uni-
versity, the 1960–1961 school year. In January
1961, university president Daryl Chase called
the school’s few black athletes together to cau-
tion them against interracial romances. Around
the same time, professor John J. Stewart
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 3
published his Mormonism and the Negro, an
apologia for the policies that restricted the full
participation of blacks in the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. The meeting and
the book touched off an intense and wide-rang-
ing conversation at USU, especially within the
1
pages of the campus newspaper, much of it fo-
N O .
cused on “local issues in which Mormonism
was the fulcrum.”
I
Finally, Christine Cooper-Rompato examines
8 8
race relations by looking to the Green Book,
V O L .
a state-by-state directory of businesses that
opened their doors to African Americans. Her
study of Utah’s hospitality industry finds that
I
from at least 1939 until the mid-1960s, very
U H Q
few restaurants and hotels would do so. The
handful of welcoming businesses were almost
entirely owned and managed by African Amer-
icans, many of them women. That could lead to
some financial success, and it could also invite 3
racially motivated violence. After the passage
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Green Book
eventually ceased publication, but that did not
spell the end of difficulties for black travelers.
Altogether, these three articles deepen our un-
derstanding of subject that hasn’t seen enough
published work: the black experience in
twentieth-century Utah, which included cold
shoulders, uneven justice, and limited public
acceptance. LDS policies, as well as Utah’s rel-
atively insular setting, surely played a role in
this environment. At the same time, as these ar-
ticles show, personal agency and striving made
a positive difference in the state, as did influx-
es of soldiers, students, defense workers, rail-
road employees, and others. And as the range
of years covered in this issue—from roughly
1939 to 2000—demonstrates, overcoming racial
prejudice and creating the beloved community,
as Dr. King put it, is not a subject buried in the
past.
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Rosa Parks speaking at a commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr. five years after his
death. After her role in the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, Parks continued the struggle
for civil rights, receiving national and international recognition for her work and service.
Library of Congress, LOT 15045, no. 612.

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The Last State to Honor MLK:

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Utah and the Quest for Racial Justice

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BY M AT T H E W L . H A R R I S A N D MA D I SO N S. H A R R I S

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November 2, 1983, was a historic day at the White House. There Presi-
dent Ronald Reagan signed a bill to create a federal holiday on the third
Monday in January named in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King. Dozens 5
of states quickly followed suit. Within three years of the bill’s passage,
seventeen states had recognized Martin Luther King Day. By 1999, all
states had recognized the King holiday except Utah.1 In Utah, as in other
states, the federal holiday set off a fierce debate about how to honor the
late civil rights leader. In 1986, the Utah legislature chose to honor the
King federal holiday by calling it Human Rights Day, prompting signifi-
cant pushback from state’s small but noteworthy African American pop-
ulation. The refusal to honor King also placed a glaring spotlight on the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose past teachings about
blacks made the Mormon-dominated Utah legislature a target of ridicule
and scorn in the national news media. In 2000, after intense pressure
from critics both within and outside of the state, Utah Governor Michael
Leavitt signed a bill renaming Human Rights Day Martin Luther King
Day. “With this signing,” the NAACP cheerfully noted, “Utah became the
last state to recognize the King holiday by name.”2

Why did it take nearly fifteen years for Utah to honor the King holiday?
We argue that a number of Utah lawmakers were influenced by the au-
thoritative teachings of LDS apostle Ezra Taft Benson and his close ally,
Cleon Skousen, both of whom branded King a communist.

Their writings, circulated widely within the LDS church, provide an im-
portant cultural context for how some state lawmakers viewed King and,
more importantly, why they refused to recognize the holiday that bore
his name. Even so, the Utah legislature eventually recognized the King
holiday because of the persistent efforts of NAACP president Jeanetta
Williams, LDS church president Gordon B. Hinckley, Utah congressman

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 Robert Sykes, and others. They convinced law-
makers to honor King, which marked the end
of a long and tumultuous debate in Utah over
his life and legacy.
gh
Ezra Taft Benson served as a member of the
LDS church’s elite Quorum of the Twelve Apos-
tles from 1943 to 1985 and was church president
from 1985 to his death in 1994. From 1953 to
1961 he served as the Secretary of Agriculture
1
in the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration,
N O .
taking a leave of absence from his ecclesiastical
responsibilities in the Quorum of the Twelve.
I
Like most of his fellow apostles, Benson be-
8 8
lieved that black people were descendants of
Cain, reflecting his deep-rooted support of
V O L .
LDS racial teachings.3 From 1852–1978 persons
of African ancestry were barred from sacred
priesthood and temple rituals because of their
I
“cursed” status.4 Church president Spencer W.
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Kimball lifted the priesthood and temple ban
in 1978 through divine revelation in the Salt
Lake temple certifying that all men and wom-
en, regardless of race, could now enjoy the full
6 privileges of Mormon liturgical rites. Kimball’s
revelation came at a critical time. The NAACP
had recently sued the Boy Scouts of America,
alleging that LDS racial policies prevented an
African American boy from advancing in scout
leadership in a Salt Lake City troop sponsored
by the church.5 Moreover, the NAACP had
pressured the church to lift the priesthood and
temple ban, proclaiming that Mormon racial
doctrine was a barrier to getting civil rights leg-
islation passed in Utah.6
The NAACP had good reason to pressure the
LDS church. The Utah legislature, composed
predominantly of Mormons, had opposed civil
rights bills in Utah in the 1940s and 1950s and
the LDS church also rejected civil rights bills
or at least preferred to remain silent when law-
makers discussed them.7 Neither church leaders
nor lawmakers believed that bills preventing
discrimination in jobs and housing were moral
issues and therefore they refused to act. They
also feared that civil rights legislation would
erode racial barriers and lead to interracial mar-
riage, which violated both church teachings and
state law prohibiting miscegenation.8
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 6
Frustrated with the state’s inaction on civil
rights, NAACP leaders threatened to protest at
the 1963 LDS general conference. After meet-
ing with Hugh B. Brown and N. Eldon Tanner
of the First Presidency, the highest governing
body in the LDS church, both sides reached a
compromise. Brown would read a statement
in general conference professing church sup-
port for civil rights and the NAACP would not
march at the conference. It was a tepid state-
ment, offering neither support for specific civil
rights bills at the federal level nor at the local
level. Not surprisingly, the NAACP did not ac-
cept the church’s lukewarm endorsement.
Some two years after meeting with Brown and
Tanner, NAACP leaders protested at Temple
Square, prompting the church hierarchy to
reassess its strategy remaining silent on civil
rights bills.9 In 1965, with LDS church support,
the Utah state legislature passed an “Anti-Dis-
crimination Act,” prohibiting discrimination in
public housing and jobs.10
The bill was a long time in coming. Neverthe-
less, Ezra Taft Benson, then an apostle and well-
known government official, was not among its
supporters. In fact, he opposed any civil rights
legislation, placing him at odds with the First
Presidency, as well as moderate-to-liberal Mor-
mons like Michigan governor George Romney,
who championed racial equality. Benson as-
serted that the civil rights movement was a
communist plot secretly masterminded by the
Kremlin. He also claimed that Martin Luther
King was a communist agent.11
Benson’s conspiracy views permeated most of
his public discourses in the 1960s, not least his
views on Dr. King. His worldview, informed by
his eight years in the Eisenhower administra-
tion when many Americans feared the spread
of communism around the world, derived
from two fringe figures whose works he read
and admired. The first was J. Edgar Hoover,
the longstanding director of the FBI and the
second was Robert Welch, the controversial
founder of the John Birch Society, the most ex-
treme anticommunist organization in the Unit-
ed States.12 In his sermons, Benson frequently
quoted from Hoover’s book Masters of Deceit
and became alarmed by the director’s bold as-
sertion that subversives lurked within the Unit-
ed States. This included, in Hoover’s words,
3/13/20 12:55 PM

Ezra Taft Benson speaking at the October 1967 LDS
general conference. Benson sermonized often to
the LDS faithful about the evils of communism, of
which he considered Martin Luther King, Jr. to be a
part. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints © By
Intellectual Reserve, Inc.
“high-ranking statesmen, public officials, ed-
ucators, ministers of the Gospel, professional
men” and others who “have been duped into
helping Communism.”13 Just as troubling, Hoo-
ver claimed that King was among the subver-
sives because he maintained close ties with
communists and agitated for racial and eco-
nomic equality.14
Welch was no less influential on Benson. He al-
leged that the civil rights movement was a com-
munist plot and that President Eisenhower and
members of his cabinet were also communists.
It was a remarkable claim given the president’s
longstanding service fighting communism and
socialism, both as Supreme Allied Command-
er in World War II and as Commander in Chief
during the Korean War. Nonetheless, Welch
made these fantastical claims within the pag-
es of The Politician, a book that Benson found
both riveting and alarming.15
Hoover and Welch’s writings motivated the
brash apostle to denounce the civil rights
movement before countless civic groups in the
United States. In 1963 Benson delivered a num-
ber of stinging addresses to Latter-day Saints
in which he vilified civil rights legislation, then
pending in Congress, as part of a “pattern for
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 7
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Hugh B. Brown at the October 1963 LDS general
V O L .
conference. Brown was part of the LDS First
Presidency, which issued a statement in favor of civil
rights at the conference. Church of Jesus Christ of
I
Latter-day Saints © By Intellectual Reserve, Inc.
U H Q
the Communist takeover of America.” He also
excoriated the NAACP, informing his fellow
apostles that the civil rights organization was 7
“made up of men who are affiliated with one to
a dozen communist-front organizations.”16
Benson’s outspoken assertions and his eager-
ness to state them publicly compelled the First
Presidency to reprimand him, after which
Idaho congressman Ralph Harding, a prac-
ticing Latter-day Saint, complained about the
apostle’s extremist views. On the floor of the
US Congress, Harding condemned Benson for
“utilizing his high church office to promote an
extremist ideology which cast aspersions on
our elected officials and other fellow citizens.”17
Harding’s strong denunciation of Benson gar-
nered unfavorable publicity in the national
news media, prompting the First Presidency to
dispatch Benson to Frankfurt, Germany, where
he presided over the European states mission
from 1964–1965.18
Though church leaders hoped that Benson’s
new church assignment would “purge” him of
his far-right political leanings, Benson returned
to the United States in 1965 as determined as
ever to expose the civil rights movement as a
communist front.19 Not long after his return
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 he informed his fellow apostles that the civil
rights movement “is being directed and sup-
ported and prompted by agents of the com-
munist party.” Earlier that year in the general
conference of the LDS church he asked Lat-
ter-day Saints what they were doing to fight the
civil rights movement. “Before I left for Europe
I warned how the communists were using the
Civil Rights movement to promote revolution
and eventual take-over of this country,” he de-
clared. “When are we going to wake up?”20
1
In 1966, as dozens of urban revolts erupted
N O .
across the United States and as scores of dis-
illusioned African Americans began chanting
“Black Power,” Benson intensified his efforts
I
to denounce the civil rights movement as a
8 8
communist plot. In a devotional assembly at
V O L .
Brigham Young University, he excoriated Mar-
tin Luther King for lecturing “at a communist
training school,” soliciting “funds through
communist sources,” and hiring “a communist
I
as a top-level aide” and he condemned him as
U H Q
someone “who unquestionably parallels the
communist line.”21 The apostle continued his
assault on the civil rights movement the fol-
8 lowing year in his church’s general conference.
In a defiant 1967 address, Benson declared that
black Marxists were poised to foment a revo-
lution. His address was prompted when riots
erupted in south central Los Angeles between
police and blacks, leaving scores of people dead
and millions of dollars in property damage.22
Benson also besmirched King after he was
assassinated in 1968 by circulating a private
memo to all general authorities urging them
not to celebrate King’s life. The apostle alleged
that King “had been affiliated” with dozens of
“officially recognized Communist fronts,” in-
cluding persons who served as “top level” aids
to the Communist Party.23
Benson’s most strident anti-King sermon ap-
peared in the Improvement Era, the official
church magazine and was republished by the
LDS-owned Deseret Book and again in a book
entitled An Enemy Hath Done This. His writ-
ings were sold in countless bookstores across
the United States and reprinted in LDS church
manuals for youth and adult Sunday school.24
Even the New Yorker magazine commented
on the ubiquity of Benson’s work, marvel-
ing that BYU sold his pamphlet titled “Civil
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 8
Rights—Tool of Communist Deception.”25 It
is not a stretch to say that Latter-day Saints
were inundated with Benson’s anti-King views,
forged over a ten-year period during the midst
of the turbulent civil rights years.
Benson’s sermonizing against King ended
abruptly in 1969 after he assailed critics in
the LDS general conference for attacking “the
church for not being in the forefront of the so-
called civil rights movement.”26 The timing was
not coincidental. Senior apostles reined him
in during the midst of an embarrassing public
relations debacle when dozens of universities
refused to compete against BYU athletic teams
in protest of Mormon racial teachings.27 The
university’s refusal to recruit black students,
moreover, gave negative publicity to the LDS
church.28 Church leaders discouraged blacks
from attending BYU, fearing that their presence
on campus would lead to interracial dating. In
1968, the year the protests began, only three
black students attended BYU, which gave the
perception to outsiders that black people were
persona non grata at the church institution.29
If Benson’s general conference sermon in 1969
marked the last time he expressed his anti-civ-
il rights views in public, they did not go away.
His writings still circulated in LDS bookstores;
more importantly, surrogates promoted his
views, contributing to anti-King sentiment.
Cleon Skousen, his close friend and ally, echoed
the apostle in “The Communist Attack on the
Mormons,” in which he drew heavily from
Benson’s 1967 general conference address
claiming that communists had organized the
athletic protests. Skousen asserted that “com-
munist-oriented revolutionary groups have
been spearheading the wave of protests and
violence directed toward Brigham Young Uni-
versity and the Mormon Church. With Marx-
ism and Maoism as their ideological base and
terror tactics as their methods,” he boldly de-
clared, “they have inflamed some and forced
others to join in their revolutionary violent
movement.”30
While Benson stopped speaking publicly
against the civil rights movement in 1969, his
writings about King had unintended conse-
quences. After President Reagan signed the
bill to honor King—a result of intense lobbying
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 by the NAACP and other liberal groups—Ben-
son’s anti-King sermons became a flash point
as Mormons in Utah and Arizona debated the
King holiday. The federal holiday forced some
Mormons to evaluate their biases toward King,
which were confused by the mixed messag-
es the top LDS leadership sent about the civil
rights movement. While Benson adamantly op-
posed civil rights, the First Presidency had en-
dorsed it in general conference in 1963, citing
that that there was “no doctrine, belief or prac-
tice” in the church “that is intended to deny
the enjoyment of full civil rights by any person
regardless of race, color, or creed.”31 Likewise,
the Deseret News, the church-owned newspa-
per, supported civil rights in an editorial piece
in 1965 as did a First Presidency statement in
1969.32
Nevertheless, despite LDS church support for
civil rights, the federal bill to recognize the
King holiday prompted a backlash not only in
Utah, but across the nation, especially from
Birchers, who lambasted it for celebrating the
life of a communist.33 Some critics cited mone-
tary concerns, claiming the holiday would cost
taxpayers millions of dollars with a paid day off
for federal employees. Others questioned why
King would be one of the select few to get a hol-
iday in their name. For still others, the federal
holiday would keep his vision of racial and eco-
nomic equality alive, which they rejected.34
In Utah, the opposition was particularly in-
tense, thanks in part to Benson and Skousen,
whose criticisms of King in the Freemen’s Di-
gest had an undeniable impact on Utahns pre-
disposed to conspiracy theories. The Freemen’s
Digest was the official magazine of the Free-
men Institute, the ultraconservative organiza-
tion that Skousen started in 1971. Skousen was
a beloved figure in Utah and had an immense
following nationally. Among the forty-six
books he authored a number were national
bestsellers, including The Naked Communist,
which joined J. Edgar Hoover’s the Masters of
Deceit as the most prominent anticommunist
book published in the 1950s. Skousen had also
been on the Birch Society national speakers’
circuit in the 1960s, joining Fred Schwarz, Bil-
ly Hargis and other prominent anticommunist
speakers.35 Latter-day Saints in the Intermoun-
tain West attended his “Freemen seminars”
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 9
and quoted from his writings in church Sunday
School and sacrament meetings. A number of
Utah lawmakers also attended the seminars
and some even proposed legislation that re-
flected their training at these seminars. “The
Freemen Institute is a good influence in the
[Republican] party,” quipped one lawmaker,
“and I hope it will have more influence.”36
Indeed, by the early 1980s, many Utah law-
makers were steeped in Skousen’s ideas and
thoroughly immersed in his writings. The
1
church-owned Deseret News commented
N O .
that the “Freemen Institute [was] a burgeon-
ing political force” in state politics. The Og-
den-Standard Examiner marveled that Utah
I
senator Orrin Hatch, Utah congressman Dan
8 8
Marriott, Idaho congressman George Hansen,
V O L .
Arizona congressman Eldon Rudd, and Ezra
Taft Benson, then president of the Quorum
of the Twelve Apostles, were all counted as
staunch Freemen supporters. The Ogden-Stan-
I
dard Examiner went on to explain that “several
U H Q
elected officials [in Utah]—among them Dem-
ocrats and Republicans, liberal and conserva-
tives—said the Freemen Institute has emerged
in recent years as a strong force at all levels of 9
government.”37
In fact, so great and so pervasive was the Free-
men Institute’s influence on Utah lawmakers
that Jim Considine, a Democratic congressman
from Salt Lake City, dourly noted that “We have
identified twenty-three to twenty-five grad-
uates of the Freemen Institute in the House
and another ten to fifteen Republicans who are
sympathetic.”38 When Skousen died in 2006,
Orrin Hatch touted his influence, affirming that
“Cleon played a significant role in the political
and governmental arena throughout Utah, our
Nation, and even the world.” Conservative talk
show host Glenn Beck similarly touted Skou-
sen’s influence.39
It comes as no surprise, then, given his ultra-
conservative views and previous denunciations
of King, that Skousen strongly opposed the King
holiday. In the January 1984 issue of the Free-
men’s Digest, devoted to the civil rights leader,
Skousen excoriated King in an attempt to influ-
ence Mormons to oppose the holiday. “[King]
surrounded himself with many long-time
members of the Communist party machinery,”
3/13/20 12:55 PM
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V O L .
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10
Skousen scoffed, offering no evidence.40 A close
ally of Skousen’s, Willard Woods, claimed with-
in the same pages that King “had close associ-
ations over many years with quite a number of
communists” further alleging that there was
“an enormous amount of F.B.I. material on King
[that] is being kept secret for 50 years at the Na-
tional Archives” that would reveal his commu-
nist affiliations. Furthermore, Woods asserted
that King was not a role model for Americans
nor worthy of having a national holiday named
after him like George Washington. Why would
Americans, he asked, want to celebrate the life
of man “who courted violence . . . broke the
law . . . and whose personal life was so revolting
that it cannot be discussed”?41
Nor is it a surprise that Benson supported the
Freemen Institute, given his close friendship
with Skousen and their mutual interest in con-
spiracy theories. Benson, in fact, spoke at many
Freemen Institute functions and attended
many of their events, despite the First Presi-
dency cracking down on Skousen for using LDS
meetinghouses to promote the Freemen Insti-
tute’s extreme right-wing agenda.42 In addition,
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 10
Cleon Skousen holding a copy of
The Naked Communist, March 15,
1958. A prolific author, Skousen
was a prominent anti-communist
crusader who staunchly opposed
a holiday honoring Martin Luther
King Jr., whom he believed was a
communist. Utah State Historical
Society, Salt Lake Tribune Negative
Collection, no. 46521.
Benson recommended Skousen’s books in gen-
eral conference and touted his work in private
communications with Latter-day Saints. Both
men believed that King was “a top Kremlin
agent.”43
In 1985, Benson’s strong convictions about King
became a matter of controversy following his
ordination as the LDS church president. The
federal holiday honoring King’s life brought
Benson’s anti-black views firmly into the open,
even if he remained silent about King during
his church presidency years. Members of the
church’s small, but outspoken black population
found his views about King particularly harm-
ful. In 1985, just months before Benson became
the church president, Chester Lee Hawkins, a
black Latter-day Saint, blamed Benson for con-
veying the impression to church members that
the civil rights movement “was rotten.” “Ezra
Taft Benson kind of messed up the whole ball
game,” Hawkins sighed. “The black people
knew him, about him, and the John Birch So-
ciety. They thought they had enough of that
bunch. I am not going to blame the Church for
the John Birch Society because of one man.
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 That wouldn’t be right [but] I have to be frank
and honest that so many people got the impres-
sion that the John Birch Society was running
the Church.”44
Benson’s strong opinions about King further
emerged after Utah lawmakers began debat-
ing the King holiday. When in 1985 Terry Lee
Williams, the first African American to serve in
the Utah State Senate, introduced a bill to rec-
ognize the civil rights leader his colleagues re-
fused to even allow a vote on the bill. “It never
saw the light of day,” Williams complained. “I
mean it didn’t even get out of committee to be
discussed.” It was “just totally nonexistent.”45
The following year Williams resubmitted the
bill after forty states had already voted in favor
of the King holiday. His second attempt was no
less controversial.46 In a speech on the Senate
floor, Williams starkly noted that “this is the
kind of bill that brings out the best in us and
also the worst in us. And that challenged peo-
ple. Because when I said the best, they would
smile and when I said the worst, they would
frown because they had to look inside of them-
selves to understand why they individually
were not supportive of the bill and that was
something that we dragged them kicking and
screaming to do.”47
Williams pressed his fellow state senators to ex-
plain why they opposed the King holiday. “They
came up with every possible argument . . . to
defeat the bill instead of speaking their true in-
ner feelings,” he frankly noted. “They were big-
oted. Some of them were out and out racists.”
They did not believe that what King “did in the
civil rights movement did anything for Utah.”
On the Senate floor, he probed further. “We
need to recognize whether we have bigotries
inside of ourselves or not.” He asked them to
evaluate their “unspoken prejudices.” Williams
recalled that his colleagues “were just squirm-
ing in their seats” when he addressed them,
because they did not have the courage to speak
“their true feelings.” They “refused to take the
microphone to speak these things and yet they
couldn’t bear to hear me speak them.”48
Publicly, Williams’s colleagues claimed to op-
pose the holiday on financial grounds, yet Wil-
liams knew why they opposed it: they believed
that King was a communist. The outspoken
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 11
senator postulated that his colleagues lacked
the courage to express their convictions on
the record because they did not want to dis-
parage King after a majority of states had vot-
ed to honor him. Off the record, though, they
spoke unrestrained, speculating that King had
“secret records with the CIA [and] FBI,” which
revealed his communist affiliations, although
a recently released book drew on King’s FBI
files to counter the claim.49 Recognizing that
Benson, Skousen, and the Birchers, not coinci-
dentally, had made the same claim against King
1
over the years, Williams averred that some
N O .
of his colleagues were “bigoted” and racist in
their views.50
I
Frustrated but not discouraged, Williams invit-
8 8
ed Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. King, to
V O L .
speak to the legislature. King implored the Sen-
ate to honor her late husband. “It is important
that we teach our young people, because they
are the ones that are going to be hopefully pick-
I
ing up the torch and carrying it forward in the
U H Q
future,” she calmly noted.51 Her message met
resistance in some quarters of the House and
Senate. One lawmaker “refused to greet [her].”
Others muttered in private that King’s husband 11
“was an infidel” who “associated with the com-
munist party” and “preached treason.”52 Yet her
visit to the state capitol energized Williams and
redoubled his efforts to get the bill through the
Senate. Like King, Williams appealed to many
of his colleagues’ desires to uphold the reputa-
tion of the LDS church. According to Williams,
who was not a Latter-day Saint, critics would
shun Mormon missionaries when they prose-
lytized: “Oh, yeah, you’re from that state that
didn’t pass the Martin Luther King holiday, ar-
en’t you?”53
Williams’s colleagues vigorously resisted the
bill, deploring his tactics and methods. The
King holiday bill was “dead in the water,” he
lamented, and posed little chance of getting
passed during the 1986 legislative session. Sen-
ators tabled the bill, which essentially killed
it.54 Dejected, Williams left the state Senate lat-
er that year after having lost in the Democratic
primaries in a bid for the U.S. Senate.
The bill experienced a different fate in the
House. After Williams proposed the bill in the
Senate, he sought a sponsor in the House. “We
looked for sponsors in the House and got beat
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 up pretty badly,” recalled Reverend France Da-
vis, chairman of the “Committee for the Martin
Luther King, Jr. Holiday in Utah” and one of
the most respected African American leaders
in the Beehive state. Fierce opposition in the
House prompted Davis to challenge Salt Lake
City congressman Robert Sykes to a debate
on “Take Two,” a prominent news program in
Utah. Sykes initially opposed the King holiday,
but by “the end of the debate,” Davis remem-
bered, Sykes was “convinced by my argument”
and agreed to sponsor the bill. After intense de-
1
bate in the House, the bill passed 48–20, thanks
N O .
in part to the indefatigable lobbying efforts of
Sykes.55
I
The King holiday bill was now at a standstill.
8 8
It passed in the House but failed in the Sen-
V O L .
ate. Recognizing the impasse, Representative
James R. Moss from Orem proposed a bill
to honor “Utah Peoples’ Day” in place of the
Martin Luther King Holiday. His bill called on
I
Utahns “to remember and reflect upon their
U H Q
ethnic and cultural heritage” and “to partici-
pate with the rest of the nation in celebrating
the lessons of tolerance, respect, equality, and
12 opportunity taught so eloquently by Reverend
Martin Luther King, Jr.” However, much to his
astonishment, Moss’s bill never made it out of
the House committee.56
To break the gridlock, several representatives
then forged a compromise bill naming the pro-
posed Martin Luther King Holiday “Human
Rights Day,” which passed unanimously in both
branches of the legislature. Utahns had the op-
tion, Representative Sykes recalled, of calling it
Martin Luther King Day or Human Rights Day.
Without fanfare or extensive media coverage,
the bill simply stated that the “third Monday of
January [would] be observed as the anniversa-
ry of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
also known as Human Rights Day.”57
Predictably, the compromise bill neither satis-
fied advocates for the King holiday nor silenced
critics. Utah’s state delegation, in fact, was di-
vided over the federal holiday. Senator Jake
Garn opposed it, “citing enormous expense and
national tradition,” while Senator Orrin Hatch,
who had initially opposed it, “changed his po-
sition in support of honoring King.” Most law-
makers in the Utah State House opposed it for
the same reasons that Garn did—the expense of
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 12
giving state employees a holiday off and King’s
perceived lack of contribution to the state. Rep-
resentative Kaye Browning, a Republican from
Weber and Davis counties, even went so far as
to question “whether King deserves the special
recognition saying he can think of other blacks
who were more outstanding than King.” Simi-
larly, Representative Ray Schmutz, a Republi-
can from Washington County, remembered: “If
we pass it, we’re saying in essence that Martin
Luther King is a better man than both Lincoln
and Washington put together. Or at least he’s
equal to it. I don’t believe and I don’t think
you’ll believe it. Second point is that we’re giv-
ing Martin Luther King the credit for the work
done by many, many people.”58
For Reverend Davis, the objections were disin-
genuous and flat-out embarrassing. They were
a “scapegoat” to obfuscate why lawmakers re-
ally opposed the King holiday. The “real rea-
son,” he sneered, was “racial prejudice.” “Most
Utahns have decided that Martin Luther King
Day is a black holiday and because of the small-
er numbers of blacks in the state it should not
be celebrated.”59
In 1986, three years after President Reagan
signed the King holiday into law, it was clear
that it had little chance in getting passed in
Utah, especially after the legislature passed
the compromise bill giving Utahns the option
of calling it Human Rights Day. What was also
clear is that the LDS church hierarchy did not
want to weigh in on what was clearly a con-
troversial matter. “Simply put, the Mormon
Church was in a bind on the King issue placed
there by the racist pronouncements of Ezra
Taft Benson,” remarked Steve Benson, the pres-
ident’s outspoken grandson.60 Prudence dictat-
ed that the church remain silent on the King
holiday, despite some Latter-day Saints writ-
ing to President Benson asking if the church
could “take a strong stand” on the King holiday,
which “would remove . . . the world’s percep-
tion of the Church as being racially biased due
to the Church’s previous policy on priesthood
holders.”61
There is no evidence that Benson supported
the King holiday. In fact, Benson maintained
close ties with Birch officials during his church
presidency and read Birch literature, making
it unlikely that he changed his views about the
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 civil rights leader.62 But neither did Benson di-
rect the legislature to oppose the holiday. In-
deed, his views about King were well known.
Forrest Crawford, co-founder and former chair
of the Utah Martin Luther King, Jr. Human
Rights (MLK) Commission, established in 1991,
candidly acknowledged the difficulty in getting
the legislature to support the King holiday: “In
1986, some legislators were . . . uncomfortable
with Dr. King as a person, because of King’s
alleged communist affiliation and his views on
Vietnam. They felt that King’s name was not

1
worthy to be on the bill.”63

N O .
Paradoxically, as Utah lawmakers opposed the
King holiday, some BYU students and admin-

I
istrators at the LDS-owned university waged

8 8
a public relations campaign in 1986 to support

V O L .
it. “The Rev. King deserves to be recognized by
Utah,” noted the headline in the Daily Universe,
the campus newspaper. “Students rallying for
awareness of King’s mission,” ran another.

I
King was a “great man who dared to dream and

worked to fulfill that dream,” declared students
in letters to the editor. BYU held a campus-wide
rally on the day of the national King holiday to
nudge the legislature to rename the holiday af-
ter him.64 John Fife, academic vice president
at BYU, referred to King as “a man dedicated
to a principle of equality” in a letter to faculty.
He acknowledged campus support for the King
holiday and encouraged students and faculty to
attend the rally.65
To bolster their support, BYU officials invited
Coretta Scott King to visit campus in January
1986, a move vigorously protested by Birch
Mormons in Utah County. They wrote letters to
President Benson, to the BYU Board of Trust-
ees and to BYU administrators, imploring them
not to bring a perceived communist to campus.
As one Bircher complained: “I wish to register
a strong protest toward the administration of
Brigham Young University in allowing that in-
stitution to be utilized to further a communist
cause.”66
Utah’s refusal to honor the King holiday was
further exacerbated in 1987 when Arizona
Governor Evan Mecham—a staunch supporter
of the Birch Society, a devoted member of the
Freemen Institute and a close friend of Ben-
son and Skousen—rescinded the King holiday
in Arizona.67 Benson, in fact, appeared with
U H Q
Coretta Scott King, 1988. At the invitation of Jeanette 13
Williams, King spoke to the Utah legislature in 1986
urging passage of a holiday in her late husband’s name.
Library of Congress, LC-HS503–4703.
Mecham on the podium during his inaugura-
tion and reportedly “set him apart” in the Ar-
izona temple as Arizona’s next governor. Such
close ties to the Mormon church president bol-
stered Mecham’s confidence to rescind Martin
Luther King Day, which he did through exec-
utive order just weeks after he was sworn into
office in 1987.68
Mecham’s executive order caused an uproar
within the Mormon community in Arizona
because it dredged up old wounds about the
church’s past treatment of blacks and because it
appeared to undermine church president Spen-
cer W. Kimball’s historic revelation in 1978 per-
mitting black men to hold the priesthood.69 The
matter quickly devolved in 1989 when an em-
barrassing letter was leaked to the Phoenix Ga-
zette revealing Ezra Taft Benson’s opposition to
King. Julian Sanders, an ultraconservative Mor-
mon from Arizona, addressed the letter to Ezra
Taft Benson in his official capacity as church

UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 13 3/13/20 12:55 PM

 president. Sanders requested that Benson pro-
duce a statement supporting Mecham’s execu-
tive order. Most troubling, however, the letter
quoted from Benson’s earlier writings when, as
an apostle, he besmirched King as “the leader
of the so-called civil rights movement.” The let-
ter went on to say that King had “lectured at a
Communist training school, . . . solicited funds
through Communist sources, . . . hired a Com-
munist as a top-level aide, . . . affiliated with
Communist fronts, . . . often praised in the Com-
munist press, and who unquestionably parallels
1
the Communist line.” Saunders, moreover, com-
N O .
pared King to “Lucifer” branding the late civil
rights icon “a liar, adulterer and thief.”70
I
Steve Benson, Ezra Taft Benson’s grandson,
8 8
leaked the letter to the press, clearly revealing
V O L .
divisions within the Latter-day Saint commu-
nity and with his grandfather. A Pulitzer Prize–
winning cartoonist at the Arizona Republic,
Steve enthusiastically embraced the King hol-
I
iday in Arizona and marched in support of it.71
U H Q
His pro-King views angered his parents who
viewed Steve’s support of the King holiday as
belligerent to the wishes of his grandfather.
14 “Stephen, your grandfather would not have
approved of that,” his mother candidly noted,
lamenting Steve’s participation at pro-King
marches and rallies.72 Steve also produced a
string of some fifty cartoons vilifying Mecham
for rescinding the holiday and for exposing his
corruption in office, which put him further at
odds with his grandfather.73
A year into Mecham’s governorship critics
accused him of misusing state funds and ob-
structing justice during the investigation,
prompting the Arizona legislature to impeach
him after only a short period in office.74 Doz-
ens of Mecham loyalists declared his innocence
and lashed out at Steve Benson for stoking dis-
cord in his cartoons by depicting the governor
as depraved and profligate. His critics, mean-
while, lambasted Mecham for corruption and
branded him a racist for rescinding the King
holiday. News outlets reported these stark di-
visions within the Mormon community casting
a shadow over Ezra Taft Benson’s church pres-
idency. Newsweek Magazine called it “Arizo-
na’s Holy War”; the New York Times declared
that “Mormons [were] Split by Turmoil over
Church Member Mecham.”75
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 14
Although President Benson remained silent
throughout the Mecham imbroglio, the LDS
public relations department responded to
the publication of Sanders’s letter by affirm-
ing Benson’s love for all people regardless of
“color, creed or political persuasion.”76 If the
Arizona episode was troubling enough, the
church also had to deal with the continued
fallout from Utah’s refusal to honor Martin
Luther King Day. The church public relations
team answered critics by explaining that LDS
church employees received paid time off for
the King holiday as did employees at BYU.77 In
addition, church officials dispatched Richard
Lindsay, managing director of public commu-
nications for the church, to deliver a tribute to
King at the Utah State Capitol Building on the
King holiday in January 1988. There Lindsay
informed his audience that even though King
had moral failings, “his vision was founded on
faith.” Lindsay added, “Despite the oppression
he saw, the bombings, the beatings, the blatant
injustice that masqueraded in the robes of the
law, he knew that God is a just and loving Fa-
ther to all mankind.”78
The pressure to rename the holiday after King
intensified during the 1990s. Some Utahns
waged letter-writing campaigns to the state
newspapers. One noted, for example, that “It
is with a mixture of sadness and anger that I
watch the elected officials of the state arrogant-
ly and disrespectfully ignore a national holiday
of major importance. I watch as the governor
addresses the all-white, essentially all-male,
overwhelmingly Mormon Legislature without
paying a scintilla of respect to the slain lead-
er.”79 Others, such as the Martin Luther King,
Jr. Commission, were public advocates of nam-
ing the state holiday for King and lobbied the
House and Senate to make the change. Even the
church-owned and operated newspaper the
Deseret News ran favorable stories about King.
One headline noted that “King’s Teachings for
Social Justice Still Ring True Today.” Anoth-
er asked: “Are Legislators Doing Right by [the
Civil] Rights Leader?”80
By the late 1990s, however, the winds in Utah
were beginning to change. A younger genera-
tion of Mormons did not appear to harbor the
negative perceptions about black people that
their parents did.81 Other factors contributed
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 too. First, forty-nine states had already accept-
ed the King holiday. Utah was the last holdout,
which prompted significant pressure on Utah
lawmakers to adopt it.82 Second, Ezra Taft Ben-
son died in 1994 making it easier for top-rank-
ing church leaders to open dialogue with black
leaders both nationally and locally. Third, the
LDS church began to crack down on right-wing
extremism including persons who expressed
racist views.83 And fourth, the NAACP in-
creased pressure on the LDS church hierarchy
to support the holiday.84
All of these factors had converged by the mid-
1990s when Gordon B. Hinckley, a political
moderate, became the LDS church president.
A pivotal moment occurred in 1998 when he
accepted an invitation to speak to the NAACP,
the very group that Benson and Skousen had
denounced as communist. Instrumental in this
regard was Jeanetta Williams, president of
the Salt Lake branch of the NAACP and one of
the most vocal proponents to rename Human
Rights Day the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday.
Though a Baptist, Williams understood the po-
litical climate in Utah well. Having lived in the
Beehive state since 1988, she knew the difficul-
ty, if not impossibility, of getting the legislature
to adopt the holiday without the support of the
LDS church, the most influential lobbying arm
in the state.85
Securing Hinckley’s participation at the
NAACP regional conference was a major coup
for Williams and an astonishing about-face for
the LDS church and the NAACP. While NAACP
leaders had met with LDS officials over the
years, it was a strained relationship at best,
especially during the heady days of the civil
rights movement when Benson and Skousen
inundated Mormon audiences with screeds
against King.86 “When I found out [President
Hinckley] accepted our invitation, I told his
secretary to tell the president that he’d made
my day,” Williams jubilantly noted.87
Hinckley’s speech, delivered on April 24, 1998,
in Salt Lake City, thrilled Williams because it
spoke to the needs of the African American
community in Utah and because it signaled
a new relationship between the LDS church
and the NAACP.88 Hinckley’s gentle tone and
measured words endeared him to his audience.
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 15
He told the crowd of 250 that he had “mingled
widely with people of all races” and that “the
world is my neighborhood, and its peoples,
regardless of status, are my friends and neigh-
bors.”89 The climactic moment occurred when
Hinckley urged black fathers to pray with
their families and to parent through love and
respect. His address was “warmly received”
with a standing ovation. NAACP leaders also
honored him with the “NAACP Distinguished
Service Award.”90
1
Fresh off the successful NAACP conference,
N O .
Williams probed further with Hinckley. In
1999, she hand-delivered a letter to his office
asking him to support the Martin Luther King
I
Holiday. James E. Faust, Hinckley’s second
8 8
counselor in the First Presidency, responded to
V O L .
the letter by calling Williams to inform her that
although the church would not publicly sup-
port changing the name from Human Rights
Day to the Martin Luther King Holiday church
I
officials would instruct Deseret News and oth-
U H Q
er church-owned affiliates, including the KSL
radio and television stations, to run favorable
editorials supporting the change. The news
gratified Williams. She recalled years later that 15
“this was positive for me and the efforts for the
name change.”91
Pressure to support the King holiday also came
from within the church. During Hinckley’s ad-
dress to the NAACP, Darius Gray, an African
American Latter-day Saint and a prominent
voice within the Mormon black community,
gently pressured leaders to adopt the change.
As Hinckley spoke to the NAACP, Gray leaned
over to the general authority sitting next to
him and whispered, “Why don’t we support
the King holiday?” The general authority nod-
ded in agreement and said that he would take
it up with Hinckley. After a period of several
months, and at about the same time that Wil-
liams had been working behind the scenes
with church authorities to recognize the King
holiday, Hinckley instructed church lobbyists
to move on the name change, ever sensitive to
Utah being the last holdout to honor the famed
civil rights leader.92
The moment of reckoning came in January
2000 when Representative Duane Bordeaux,
an African American from Salt Lake City and
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 Senator Pete Suazo, a Hispanic American also
from Salt Lake City, co-sponsored a bill to re-
name the holiday after King—all of this initiated
by the persistent efforts of Jeanetta Williams.93
Pressure had been mounting for over a decade
to change the name. Williams’s relentless ac-
tivism along with a groundswell of support
across the state forced the issue. But accep-
tance of the holiday was far from certain. Even
Hinckley’s support did not guarantee passage
of the bill. Mormon lawmakers, long steeped
in anti-King rhetoric, struggled to support a
1
man they deemed subversive. In anticipation of
N O .
another raucous debate over the King holiday,
Bordeaux and Suazo went on a media blitz to
generate support for their bill. “Dr. King stood
I
for non-violence and justice and equality for all
8 8
people,” Boudreaux affirmed during a media
V O L .
interview. “If people truly understood what he
stood for, what legacy he leaves, I think they
would be more likely to vote for these bills.”
I
Likewise, Suazo noted that “Human Rights Day
U H Q
does not give due credit to the contributions of
this great man. As a leader, [Dr. King] raised the
consciousness and the prejudice and discrimi-
nation, corporate advancement, and especially
16 voting rights.”94
In 2000, on the federal holiday to honor King,
Utahns celebrated his life through “speech-
es, prayers, service projects, music, candles,
bell-ringing,” the Deseret News reported. Ac-
tivists made “repeated requests to rename the
holiday in Utah,” giving vigorous support to
Bordeaux and Suazo’s bill. At the same time, the
NAACP honored King at a highly publicized
luncheon. Salt Lake branch president Jeanetta
Williams thanked the legislators for sponsoring
the state bill while her colleague, Edward Lew-
is, the master of ceremonies at the luncheon,
read the federal bill that Reagan had signed
into law in 1983.95 Not least, support poured in
from all over the country and across the state,
from organizations ranging from the Utah Jazz
and the Japanese American Citizens League to
the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce Board of
Governors and League of Women Voters. Most
importantly, KSL, the church-owned and oper-
ated TV station, expressed support through an
editorial, as did the Deseret News and the Salt
Lake Tribune.96 Undoubtedly these editorials
played a significant role in getting grassroots’
Utahns to support the King holiday.
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 16
House Speaker Marty Stephens (R-Far West)
was another important ally. Stephens became
increasingly agitated with the negative pub-
licity concerning the state’s inaction on the
King holiday and bluntly noted that support-
ing the proposed change “takes us out of the
controversy.”97 Still, despite overwhelming
bipartisan support for Bordeaux and Suazo’s
bill, critics within the House caucus killed it,
which they did through a committee vote of
5–4. When Stephens learned of the bill’s de-
mise, he demanded a revote: this time it passed
6–4.98 When the bill reached the House floor it
passed by a vote of 54–17; in the Senate 28–1.
On March 16, 2000, Governor Michael Leavitt
signed the bill into law designating the third
Monday of January as the Martin Luther King,
Jr. Holiday.99
Overwhelmed with joy, Duane Bordeaux and
Pete Suazo could scarcely control their emo-
tions. “This brings us in line with the rest of
the union,” Bordeaux jubilantly noted. “We
will continue to build from this and tackle oth-
er issues related to justice and equality for all
people.” Suazo happily noted that that King
holiday would help Utahns fulfil the values of
“justice, liberty and equality” enshrined in the
Constitution. “Those were the promises of our
forefathers, and Dr. King raised the conscious-
ness of the country to say that these principles
applied to all people, regardless of race, creed
or religion.”100
Meanwhile, eight years after Utah lawmak-
ers changed Human Rights Day to the Martin
Luther King Holiday, LDS church president
Gordon Hinckley quietly passed after a brief
illness, prompting Jeanetta Williams to reflect
on Hinckley’s life and legacy. She fondly re-
called his “advocacy to rename Utah’s Human
Rights Day in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.”
“His backing,” she affirmed, “won praise from
the NAACP and helped sell the Legislature on
the name change.”101 But Williams knew that
Hinckley’s was one voice among many in con-
tributing to the passage of this important bill.
Hinckley’s efforts, along with the tireless work
of Terry Williams, France Davis, Robert Sykes,
Duane Bordeaux, Pete Suazo, and especially
Jeanetta Williams herself, played a critical role
in getting the Utah legislature to honor a man it
had once shunned.
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 Notes
We are grateful to Jeanetta Williams, president of the
Salt Lake branch of the NAACP, and Robert Sykes, for-
mer Utah congressman, for their support in the prepa-
ration of this article. We would also like to thank the
anonymous reviewers for the journal, as well as Jed
Rogers and Holly George, co-editors of the Utah His-
torical Quarterly. Their insights and constructive sug-
gestions have made this a better work.
1 See Houston Style Magazine January 8–14, 2015, issuu
.com/houstonstylemagazine/docs/hsm_1815; Jason So-
kol, The Heavens Might Crack: The Death and Legacy of
Martin Luther King Jr. (New York: Basic Books, 2018),
252; Matthew Dennis, “The Invention of Martin Lu-
ther King Jr.’s Birthday,” in We Are What We Celebrate:
Understanding Holidays and Rituals, ed. Amitai Etzio-
ni and Jared Bloom (New York: New York University
Press, 2004), 179–83.
2 Phil W. Petrie, “The MLK Holiday: Branches Work to
Make It Work,” The Crisis 107 (May–June 2000): 55.
3 First Presidency counselor Hugh B. Brown appears to
be the only member of the church hierarchy who re-
jected traditional Mormon racial teachings. See Mat-
thew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst, eds., The
Mormon Church and Blacks: A Documentary History
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015), 74–76; Ed-
win B. Firmage, ed., An Abundant Life: The Memoirs
of Hugh B. Brown, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Signature
Books, 1999), 142.
4 Two LDS apostles offered the most vivid expressions
of Mormon racial teachings: Joseph Fielding Smith,
The Way to Perfection: Short Discourses on Gospel
Themes, 5th ed. (Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society
of Utah, 1945), chaps. 15 and 16; and Bruce R. Mc­
Conkie, Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft,
1958), 102–3, 107–8, 476–77, 553–54. For scholarly ap-
praisals of the priesthood and temple ban, see Lester E.
Bush Jr., “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical
Overview,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8
(Spring 1973): 11–68; W. Paul Reeve, Religion of a Differ-
ent Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); Harris and
Bringhurst, Mormon Church and Blacks.
5 In 1974 the NAACP challenged Mormon racial teach-
ings in a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America. A
Salt Lake City scout troop sponsored by the LDS church
rejected a black scout member for a leadership posi-
tion, citing that he could not hold the Aaronic Priest-
hood. See France Davis interview by Leslie G. Kelen,
August 4, 1983, box 1, fd. 23, Interview with Blacks in
Utah, 1982–1988, Special Collections, J. Willard Mar-
riott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
(JWML). Harris and Bringhurst, Mormon Church and
Blacks, 106, discusses the LDS church’s response to the
lawsuit.
6 James Dooley, at the time the branch president of the
Salt Lake City chapter of the NAACP, recalled a meet-
ing in the spring of 1978 in which he asked LDS church
president Spencer W. Kimball to lift the ban. James
Dooley interview by Leslie G. Kelen, December 6, 1983,
interview 8, tape 104, transcript p. 30, Everett L. Cooley
Oral History Project, JWML.
7 For Utah’s rejection of civil rights in the immediate
post-WWII years, see “1961 Report: Utah Advisory
Committee to the United States Commission on Civil
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 17
Rights,” reel 7, part 27 (Utah): Selected Branch Files,
Papers of the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (Bethesda, MD: University Publica-
tions of America, 1991); Wallace R. Bennett, “The Ne-
gro in Utah,” Utah Law Review 3 (Spring 1953): 340–48;
and F. Ross Peterson, “Blindside: Utah on the Eve of
Brown v. Board of Education,” Utah Historical Quar-
terly 73 (Winter 2005): 4–20.
8 For the notion that civil rights bills were not moral is-
sues, see First Presidency counselor N. Eldon Tanner,
quoted in Glen W. Davidson, “Mormon Missionaries
and the Race Question,” Christian Century 82 (Sep-
tember 29, 1965): 1185; and Johnie M. Driver, “L.D.S.
Church Leaders Should Speak Out for Moral Justice,”
March 9, 1965, box 1, fd. 29, Stephen Holbrook Papers,
1
1946–2005, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake
N O .
City, Utah. For laws barring miscegenation in Utah, see
Patrick Q. Mason, “The Prohibition of Interracial Mar-
riage in Utah, 1888–1963,” Utah Historical Quarterly 76
I
(Spring 2008): 108–31; and Peggy Pascoe, What Comes
Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race
8 8
in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009),
85, 93, 118, 240–41.
V O L .
9 Hugh B. Brown general conference address, Octo-
ber 4–6, 1963, Conference Report (Salt Lake City: The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1963), 91;
see also Gregory A. Prince and William Robert Wright,
I
David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism
U H Q
(Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005), 69–71;
and Harris and Bringhurst, Mormon Church and Blacks,
74–76.
10 “1965 Session: Bill 62,” box 32, fd. 61, Legislature House
Working Bills, 1896–1989, Series 432, Utah State Ar-
chives and Records Service, Salt Lake City, Utah (US- 17
ARC).
11 Matthew Harris has explored these points in greater
detail in “Martin Luther King, Civil Rights, and Percep-
tions of a ‘Communist Conspiracy,’” chap. 5, in Thunder
from the Right: Ezra Taft Benson in Mormonism and
Politics, ed. Matthew L. Harris (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 2019). For Romney, see J.B. Haws, The
Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of
Public Perception (New York: Oxford University Press,
2013), chap. 2.
12 Matthew L. Harris, “Watchman on the Tower”: Ezra
Taft Benson and the Making of the Mormon Right (Salt
Lake City: University of Utah Press, forthcoming,
2020), chaps. 2–3.
13 Ezra Taft Benson, An Enemy Hath Done This, comp. by
Jerreld L. Newquist (Salt Lake City: Parliament Pub-
lishers, 1969), 44; Hoover, Masters of Deceit: The Story
of Communism in America and How to Fight It (New
York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1958), 93.
14 The best study of King’s alleged connection to com-
munism is David J. Garrow, The FBI and Martin Lu-
ther King, Jr. (New York: Penguin Books, 1981); and
“The FBI and Martin Luther King,” Atlantic Monthly
July–August 2002, 80–88. Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire:
America in the King Years, 1963–65 (New York: Simon
Schuster, 1998). For Hoover’s assertion that the civil
rights movement was a communist front group, see
Hoover, Masters of Deceit, chap. 18; Hoover, A Study of
Communism (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1962), chap. 11.
15 The Politician (privately published, 1956), 267–68, Mat-
thew Harris files. D.J. Mulloy, The World of the John
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 Birch Society: Conspiracy, Conservatism, and the Cold
War (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2014),
16–22, provides a succinct overview of The Politician, as
does David H. Bennett, The Party of Fear: The American
Far Right from Nativism to the Militia Movement, rev.
ed. (New York: Vintage, 1995), 318–19. Benson sent cop-
ies of The Politician to fellow general authorities and
ordered copies for the LDS Church History Library.
For this point, see Benson to Joseph Fielding Smith,
July 31, 1963, MSS Sc 1260, L. Tom Perry Special Col-
lections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young Uni-
versity, Provo, Utah (hereafter HBLL); and the Ezra
Taft Benson–Robert Welch correspondence at the
John Birch Society Headquarters, Appleton, Wiscon-
sin, which contains receipts for copies of The Politician
1
that Benson purchased for family and friends. For Ben-
N O .
son’s allegations that Eisenhower and his cabinet affili-
ated with communism and Eisenhower’s response, see
Harris, “Watchman on the Tower,” chap. 3.
I
16 “A Race Against Time” (December 10, 1963; Provo,
Utah); “We Must Become Alerted and Informed” (De-
8 8
cember 13, 1963; Logan, Utah); “The Internal Threat To-
day (December 19, 1963; Boise, Idaho), all in Ezra Taft
V O L .
Benson, Title of Liberty: A Warning Voice (Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book, 1964), 22–41, 42–60, 61–85 (quote on 58).
For Benson’s critique of the NAACP as a communist
front-group, see the Council of the Twelve Minutes, No-
I
vember 4, 1965, box 64, fd. 8, Spencer W. Kimball Papers,
U H Q
LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City (CHL).
17 Speech of Hon. Ralph Harding of Idaho in the House of
Representatives, September 25, 1963, “Ezra Taft Ben-
son’s Support of John Birch Society is Criticized,” in
109 Cong. Rec. (1963).
18 18 Prince and Wright, David O. McKay, 295–98; Frank
Hewlett, “Harding Assails Benson on Birch Issue,” Salt
Lake Tribune, September 26, 1963; “Idaho Congress-
man Hits Benson Speech,” Deseret News, September
26, 1963; “Legislator, a Mormon, Scores Benson for
Birch Activities,” New York Times, September 26, 1963.
19 Harris, “Martin Luther King,” 133–36.
20 Benson quoted in Council of the Twelve Minutes, No-
vember 4, 1965 Ezra Taft Benson general conference
address, “Not Commanded in All Things,” April 6, 1965,
unaltered version in David O. McKay Scrapbook no. 79,
David O. McKay Papers, JWML. The reference to civil
rights was dropped from the published version of the
talk, per the wishes of First Presidency counselor
Hugh B. Brown who believed that Benson’s language
was inflammatory. See David O. McKay journal, May
3, 1965, box 59, fd. 5, McKay Papers. Compare with
the published version of Benson’s address: “Not Com-
manded in All Things,” Improvement Era, June 1965,
537–39.
21 Benson, An Enemy Hath Done This, 310; Peter B. Levy,
The Great Uprising: Race Riots in Urban American dur-
ing the 1960s (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2018); Peniel E. Joseph, Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour:
A Narrative History of Black Power in America (New
York: Henry Holt, 2006).
22 Ezra Taft Benson, “Trust Not the Arm of Flesh,” Im-
provement Era, December 1967, 55–58; James T. Pat-
terson, The Eve of Destruction: How 1965 Transformed
America (New York: Basic Books, 2012), chap. 11.
23 Ezra Taft Benson memo to General Authorities, re:
Martin Luther King, April 6, 1968, MS d 4936, CHL
(courtesy of LDS church archivist William Slaughter);
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 18
also in box 63, fd. 1, Kimball Papers. In addition, Ben-
son sent the memo to his close friend, J. Willard Mar-
riott. See Benson to Marriott, May 1, 1969, box 12, fd. 23,
J. Willard Marriott Papers, JWML.
24 See Benson, “Trust Not the Arm of Flesh.” This sermon
was republished the following year in a pamphlet titled
Civil Rights: A Tool of Communist Deception (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, 1968) and again under the same title
in An Enemy Hath Done This, chap. 13. Benson’s other
sermons were also republished in a number of venues.
See, for example, Ezra Taft Benson, Title of Liberty;
Benson, An Enemy Hath Done This; Benson, So Shall Ye
Reap: Selected Addresses of Ezra Taft Benson, comp. by
Reed A. Benson (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1960);
Benson, God, Family, Country: Our Three Great Loyalties
(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1974); Benson, This Na-
tion Shall Endure (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1979);
Benson, A Witness and a Warning: A Modern-day Proph-
et Testifies of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: De-
seret Book, 1988); Reed A. Benson, ed., The Teachings of
Ezra Taft Benson (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988).
25 “U.S. Journal: Provo, Utah,” New Yorker, March 21,
1970, 122.
26 Benson, “To the Humble Followers of Christ,” Im-
provement Era, June 1969, 43.
27 Gary James Bergera, “‘This Time of Crisis’: The Race-
Based Anti-BYU Athletic Protests of 1968–1971,” Utah
Historical Quarterly 81 (Summer 2013): 204–29; J.B.
Haws, “Church Rites versus Civil Rights,” chap. 3 in
The Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of
Public Perception (New York: Oxford University Press,
2013); Darron T. Smith, “Black Student Revolts and Po-
litical Uprising in the Late Sixties and Early Seventies:
Fanning the Flame of Black Student-Athlete Revolts,”
chap. 4 in When Race, Religion and Sport Collide: Black
Athletes at BYU and Beyond (Lanham, MD: Rowman
and Littlefield, 2016). For the LDS leadership cracking
down on Benson, see Harris, “Watchman on the Tower,”
chap. 4.
28 Harris, “Martin Luther King.”
29 In 1968 and 1970, according to statistics that BYU filed
with the U.S. Office for Civil Rights, 0.03 percent of the
student body were “Negroes.” In box 42, fd. 11, Robert
K. Thomas Papers, HBLL. WAC officials criticized
BYU officials for not recruiting black students or ath-
letes. For strictures against interracial dating at BYU,
see Ernest L. Wilkinson memo to Board of Trustees,
re: “Charges of ‘Racism’ and ‘Bigotry’ Against the LDS
Church,” October 29, 1969, 34–35, “Compiled Infor-
mation Concerning African Americans, BYU, and the
Church,” HBL; and Rebecca de Schweinitz,“‘There is
No Equality’: William E. Berrett, BYU, and Healing
the Wounds of Racism in the Latter-day Saint Past and
Present,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 52
(Fall 2019): 67–68.
30 Skousen, “The Communist Attack on the Mormons”
(American Fork, UT: National Research Group, March
1970), 1. Skousen’s address drew the attention of the
national news media. See Wallace Turner, “Conserva-
tive and Liberal Mormons Advise Church on Negro
Exclusion Policy,” New York Times, June 21, 1970. For
others echoing Benson’s civil rights views, see Jerreld
L. Newquist, comp., Prophets, Principles and National
Survival (Salt Lake City: Publisher’s Press, 1964); Je-
rome Horowitz, The Elders of Israel and the Constitu-
tion (Salt Lake City: Parliament Publishers, 1970).
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 31 Hugh B. Brown general conference address, October
4–6, 1963.
32 “A Clear Civil Rights Stand,” Deseret News, March 9,
1965; “Letter of First Presidency Clarifies Church’s Po-
sition on the Negro,” December 15, 1969, Improvement
Era, February 1970, 70–71.
33 Larry McDonald, “Americans, Stop Thinking Like
Communists,” June 18, 1980, in 126 Cong. Rec. (1980);
David L. Chappell, Waking from the Dream: The Strug-
gle for Civil Rights in the Shadow of Martin Luther King,
Jr. (New York: Random House, 2014), 96–97, 112, 118;
Sokol, Heavens Might Crack, 245–53.
34 Chappell, Waking from the Dream, 95–98.
35 Skousen, The Naked Communist (Salt Lake City: Ensign
Publishing, 1958). For Skousen’s influence in national
politics, including his stint on the lecture circuit, see
Kevin M. Kruse, One Nation Under God: How Corporate
America Invented Christian America (New York: Basic
Books, 2015), 151, 154–55; Lisa McGirr, Suburban War-
riors: The Origins of the New American Right (Prince-
ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 84–85, 95,
101; Jonathan M. Schoenwald, A Time for Choosing:
The Rise of Modern American Conservatism (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2001), 45.
36 Linda Sillitoe and David Merrill, “Freemen America”
(part 1), Utah Holiday Magazine February 1981, 40, 52–
54.
37 Jim Boardman, “Freemen Institute a Burgeoning Po-
litical Force,” Deseret News, June 14, 1980; John Har-
rington and Vaughn Roche, “‘New Right’: and Utah
Politics,” Ogden Standard-Examiner, May 8, 1980; see
also Peter Gillins, “Amid Patriotic Trappings: Freemen
Institute Preaches Born Again Constitutionalism,”
UPI, June 20, 1982.
38 Linda Sillitoe and David Merrill, “Freeman America”
(part 2), Utah Holiday Magazine, March 1981, 40, 52.
39 Orrin Hatch, “Tribute to W. Cleon Skousen,” in 152
Cong. Rec. S114-S115 (January 25, 2006). Alexander
Zaitchik, Common Sense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of
Ignorance (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2010), chap.
12; Sean Wilentz, “Confounding Fathers: The Tea Party’s
Cold War Roots,” The New Yorker, October 18, 2010.
40 W. Cleon Skousen and R. Stephen Pratt, “Reverend
King’s Ministry: Thirteen Years of Crisis,” Freemen Di-
gest (January 1984): 15–20 (quote on 18).
41 Willard Woods, “Martin Luther King Day,” Freemen Di-
gest (January 1984): 21–24 (quotes on 21, 23).
42 For Benson’s speeches at Freemen Institute functions,
see box 1, fd. 3, Freemen Institute Records, 1963–1980,
JWML; John Harrington, “The Freemen Institute,”
The Nation, August 16–23, 1980, 152–53; John Har-
rington and Vaughn Roche, “Freemen Institute: Reli-
gious Roots, Ties?” Ogden Standard-Examiner, May 13,
1980. For the First Presidency cracking down on Skou-
sen and the Freemen Institute, see First Presidency
(Spencer W. Kimball, N. Eldon Tanner, Marion G. Rom-
ney) to all Stake Presidents, Bishops, and Branch Presi-
dents in U.S., February 15, 1979, box 27, fd. 2, John W.
Fitzgerald Papers, Special Collections, Merrill-Cazier
Library, Utah State University, Logan, Utah.
43 For references to Skousen in Benson’s talks, see Ben-
son, Title of Liberty, 43, 116, 183; Benson, An Enemy
Hath Done This, 88, 166. For Benson urging Latter-day
Saints to read Skousen, see his letter to Elder Bremer,
August 1, 1972, Harris files. Skousen depicted King as a
“top Kremlin agent” in a memo to BYU president Er-
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 19
nest L. Wilkinson, January 23, 1970, box 177, fd. 16, Er-
nest L. Wilkinson Papers, HBLL. See also Benson, An
Enemy Hath Done This, chap. 13.
44 Chester Lee Hawkins interview with Alan Cherry,
March 1, 1985, 22–23, African American Oral History
Project, HBLL.
45 Terry Lee Williams interview with Leslie Kelen, April
4, 1986, 58, box 7, fd. 5, Interviews with Blacks in Utah,
1982–1988, JWML.
46 See An Act Relating to State Affairs in General; Declar-
ing the Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., As
a Legal Holiday in the State, S.B. 17, box 58, fd. 14, Utah
State Senate Working Bills, USARA. This bill omitted
the phrase “Personal Preference Day” from the 1985
version. No reason is provided.
1
47 Williams interview, 60.
N O .
48 Williams interview, 69.
49 Williams interview, 62. King’s FBI files are sealed until
2027, but a portion of them have been released through
I
a Freedom of Information Act Request, forming the ba-
sis of David Garrow’s The FBI and Martin Luther King,
8 8
Jr. Garrow skillfully argues that J. Edgar Hoover, the
longstanding FBI director, abused his power by relent-
V O L .
lessly targeting King. Hoover alleged that King was
aligned with communists, but wiretaps, which formed
the basis of King’s FBI files, indicate that he denounced
communism. The wiretaps also reveal that in the 1950s
I
two men in King’s inner circle had been active in the
U H Q
Communist Party but had renounced their affiliation
before meeting King. See also Richard Gid Powers, Bro-
ken: The Troubled Past and Uncertain Future of the FBI
(New York: Free Press, 2004), 245–55.
50 Williams interview, 63.
51 John Daley, “Coretta Scott King Remembered Fondly 19
in Utah,” KSL News, January 31, 2006, accessed De-
cember 20, 2019, www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=157299.
52 Greg Burton, “Living in the Beehive State Still a Chal-
lenge for Blacks,” Salt Lake Tribune, January 19, 2004;
Williams interview, 67.
53 Williams interview, 71.
54 Williams interview, 65.
55 For Sykes’s bill, see H.B. 186, box 63, fd. 18, Utah House
of Representatives Working Bills, USARC. Reverend
France A. Davis and Nayra Atiya, France Davis: An
American Story Told (Salt Lake City: University of Utah
Press, 2007), 272; John DeVilbiss, “Utah, Region Balks
at King Holiday,” Ogden Standard-Examiner, January
11, 1986. Sykes also recalled being convinced by Davis’s
arguments. Harris telephone interview with Sykes, Au-
gust 31, 2018.
56 An Act Relating to State Affairs in General; Declar-
ing the Third Monday in January as a Legal Holiday
Known as Utah Peoples’ Day in Place of Personal Pref-
erence Day, H.B. 224, box 63, fd. 30, Utah House of Rep-
resentatives Working Bills, USARC.
57 The Human Rights Day compromise bill passed 69–0
in the Senate and 24–0 in the House. For the bill, in-
cluding the names of its eleven sponsors, see H.B. 88,
January 9, 1987, box 65, fd. 50, Utah House of Represen-
tatives Working Bills, USARC; Harris telephone inter-
view with Sykes, August 31, 2018.
58 Browning quoted in DeVilbiss, “Utah, Region Balks
at King Holiday”; Schmutz quoted in Daley, “Coretta
Scott King Fondly Remembered in Utah.”
59 Davis quoted in DeVilbiss, “Utah, Region Balks at King
Holiday”; Doug Robinson, “Rev. France Davis: A Force
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 for Good,” Deseret News, December 1, 2002; France
Davis interview with Leslie Kelen, August 4, 1983, box
1, fd. 25, Interviews with Blacks in Utah, 1982–1988,
JWML.
60 Benson email to Matthew Harris, November 6, 2014.
61 W. Julius Johnson to President Ezra Taft Benson, Janu-
ary 30, 1990, Harris files (courtesy of Steve Benson).
62 Harris, Thunder from the Right, 9.
63 Crawford, as quoted in Julie Howard, “Legislator Pro-
poses Renaming the Holiday,” Daily Universe (Brigham
Young University), January 13, 2000.
64 “The Rev. King Deserves to Be Recognized,” “Stu-
dents Rallying for Awareness of King’s Mission,” and
“A Great Man,” Daily Universe, January 16, 1986; “Stu-
dents and Faculty May Rally Monday,” Daily Universe,
1
January 17, 1986. The University of Utah and Weber
N O .
State University also honored the King holiday, nudg-
ing the state legislature to name the holiday after him.
BYU students have had a long history of activism. See
I
Bryan Waterman and Brian Kagel, The Lord’s Univer-
sity: Freedom and Authority at BYU (Salt Lake City: Sig-
8 8
nature Books, 1998).
65 John Fife to BYU faculty, January 16, 1986, box 15, fd.
V O L .
6, Paul C. Richards Papers, JWML (courtesy of Wal-
ter Jones). Charlene Winters memo to Paul Richards,
January 19, 1989 (box 15, fd. 6, Richards Papers), details
other universities honoring the King holiday. BYU had
I
been sponsoring events to honor King for at least a year
U H Q
before the Utah legislature debated a bill to name the
holiday after him. See Jessie L. Embry, Black Saints in
a White Church: Contemporary African American Mor-
mons (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994), 186–87.
66 Joe H. Ferguson to Ezra Taft Benson (with a copy to the
20 BYU Board of Trustees and BYU president Jeffrey R.
Holland), January 17, 1986, box 15, fd. 6, Richards Papers;
see also Warren W. Hardy, “Says Utah Shouldn’t Have
King Holiday,” Daily Herald (Provo, UT), February 14,
1986. It is not clear how President Benson responded to
these protest letters, much less to Coretta Scott King’s
invitation to campus. The Executive Minutes of the BYU
Board of Trustees are not available to researchers.
67 For Mecham’s ties to the Birch Society, see “Gov. Me-
cham to Address Birch Society Gathering,” Los Angeles
Times, June 6, 1987. For Mecham’s ties to the Freemen
Institute, see John Harrington and Vaughn Roche,
“Cleon Skousen: Prominent Author and Political Ac-
tivist,” Ogden Standard-Examiner, May 9, 1980. See
Ronald J. Watkins, High Crimes and Misdemeanors:
The Term and Trials of Former Governor Evan Me-
cham (New York: William Morrow, 1990), 97–98, for
Skousen’s influence on Mecham. Sokol, Heavens Might
Crack, 245–50, contains a succinct discussion of the
King holiday in Arizona.
68 For Benson and Skousen’s close ties to Mecham, includ-
ing attending his inauguration and setting him apart in
the temple, see Karen Coates, “The Holy War Surround-
ing Evan Mecham,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon
Thought 22 (Fall 1989): 66; and Watkins, High Crimes
and Misdemeanors, 97. For newspaper coverage of Me-
cham’s executive order, consult “New Arizona Governor
Halts King Holiday,” Los Angeles Times, January 13, 1987;
Thomas J. Knudson, “Arizona Torn by Governor-Elect’s
Plan to Drop King Holiday,” New York Times, December
23, 1986; and Thomas B. Rosenstiel, “The Controversial
New Governor of Arizona is Making His Mark on the
State’s Politics,” Salt Lake Tribune, April 26, 1987.
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 20
69 Scott McCartney, “Mormons Split by Turmoil Over
Church Member Mecham,” Los Angeles Times, March
12, 1988; “LDS Group in Arizona Urging Approval of a
King Holiday,” Deseret News, October 21, 1990.
70 Julian Sanders to Ezra Taft Benson, October 1, 1989,
published in “Sanders’ Letter Angers His Allies: King
Slur Draws Rebuke,” Phoenix Gazette, October 6, 1989.
71 Steve Benson, “Ezra Taft Benson: A Grandson’s Re-
membrance,” Sunstone (December 1994): 29–37, re-
counts his relationship with his grandfather. Benson
defended leaking the letter to the press: “Sanders had
sent me his letter unsolicited. I had not agreed with
Sanders’ demand that I not publicize his efforts to se-
cretly elicit the support of the President of the Mor-
mon Church in an effort to sabotage public efforts to
ratify a state holiday for Dr. King.” In Benson email to
Matthew Harris, November 6, 2014. See also Benson
quoted in Ed Foster and Steve Yozwiak, “Anti-King
Petitions Get Support, Thousands Sign, Drive Leaders
Say,” Arizona Republic, October 10, 1989.
72 Steve Benson, “Ezra Taft Benson: Mormonism’s Proph-
et, Seer, and Racebaiter,” Blacfax: A Journal of Black
History and Opinion 13 (Winter 2008): 23. Steve Ben-
son became a strident critic of the LDS church. He was
especially critical of his grandfather and eventually left
the church. See Haws, Mormon Image in the American
Mind, 154, 167.
73 Eduardo Pagán, “Razing Arizona: The Clash in the
Church Over Evan Mecham,” Sunstone (March 1988):
15–21; Watkins, High Crimes and Misdemeanors, 88.
74 Watkins, High Crimes and Misdemeanors, esp. chap.
10; Melissa Rigg and Susan R. Carson, “Mecham Con-
victed,” Arizona Daily Star, April 5, 1988; Lindsey Gru-
son, “House Impeaches Arizona Governor,” New York
Times, February 6, 1988.
75 “Arizona’s Holy War: Mecham’s Predicament Splits
the Mormons,” Newsweek, February 1, 1988, 28; Scott
McCartney, “Mormons Split by Turmoil Over Church
Member Mecham,” New York Times, March 12, 1988;
see also “LDS Group in Arizona Urging Approval of a
King Holiday,” Deseret News, October 21, 1990.
76 “Sanders’ Letter Angers His Allies, King Slur Draws Re-
buke,” Phoenix Gazette, October 6, 1989. Benson read this
statement when he was first inaugurated as the church
president. Don L. Searle, “President Ezra Taft Benson
Ordained Thirteenth President of the Church,” En-
sign, December 1985, accessed on December 20, 2019,
lds.org/ensign/1985/12/president-ezra-taft-benson
-ordained-thirteenth-president-of-the-church?lang=eng.
77 Jerry P. Cahill to W. Julius Johnson, February 26, 1990,
Matthew Harris files. Cahill was the Director of Inter-
national Communications for the church at the time he
wrote the letter. See also “LDS Group in Arizona Urg-
ing Approval of a King Holiday.”
78 Lindsay address at the Utah State Capitol, January 18,
1988, Richard P. Lindsay addresses, 1976–1994, CHL.
79 “Give King Holiday Its Due,” Salt Lake Tribune, Febru-
ary 5, 1997.
80 Abigail Van Buren, “King’s Teachings for Social Jus-
tice Still Ring True Today,” Deseret News, January 20,
1992; Amy Donaldson, “Are Legislators Doing Right by
Rights Leader?” Deseret News, January 20, 1997.
81 For this point, see David E. Campbell, John C. Green,
and J. Quin Monson, Seeking the Promised Land: Mor-
mons and American Politics (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2014), 61–62; and their article “Survey
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 Clarifies Mormons’ Beliefs about Race,” Deseret News,
March 30, 2012. See also Jana Riess, The Next Mor-
mons: How Millennials are Changing the LDS Church
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), chap. 6.
82 In 1999, New Hampshire recognized the King holiday,
stipulating it as a paid holiday for state employees. In
2000, South Carolina made it a paid holiday. This new
law replaced an earlier law that gave state employees a
choice whether to honor the King holiday or one of three
designated Confederate holidays. See “Some States Boy-
cotted MLK Day at First,” UPI, January 21, 2013, accessed
December 20, 2019, upi.com/Some-states-boycotted
-MLK-Day-at-first/57461358775502/; Michael Brindley,
“N.H.’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Didn’t Happen With-
out a Fight,” New Hampshire Public Radio, August 27, 2013,
accessed December 20, 2019, nhpr.org/post/nhs-martin
-luther-king-jr-day-didnt-happen-without-fight
#stream/0; Sokol, Heavens Might Crack, 251.
83 For Gordon B. Hinckley’s dialogue with the NAACP, see
Harris, “Martin Luther King,” 140. For the church crack-
ing down on religious extremism, see Haws, Mormon
Image in the American Mind, 178–80; Harris, “Watch-
man on the Tower,” chap. 5; Armand L. Mauss, The Angel
and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 188–89.
84 Harris, “Watchman on the Tower,” chap. 5.
85 For background and context to Williams, as well as her
perceptive understanding of Mormon culture, see her
interview with Jennifer DeMayo, September 9, 1993,
African American Oral History Project, HBLL. See
also Doug Robinson, “Woman of Controversy: Wil-
liams’ Leadership of the NAACP in S.L. Earns Sup-
port and Criticism,” Deseret News, June 18, 2006. For
the LDS church’s lobbying efforts concerning public
policy issues in Utah, see Adam R. Brown, Utah Poli-
tics and Government: American Democracy among a
Unique Electorate (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 2018), 92–96; and Rod Decker, Utah Politics: The
Elephant in the Room (Salt Lake City: Signature Books,
2019). For the church’s lobbying efforts in national
public policy issues, see D. Michael Quinn, “Exporting
Utah’s Theocracy Since 1975: Mormon Organizational
Behavior and America’s Culture Wars,” chap. 7 in God
and Country: Politics in Utah, ed. Jeffery E. Sells (Salt
Lake City: Signature Books, 2005).
86 Jason Swenson and Carrie A. Moore, “LDS Leader to
Keynote Conference—of NAACP,” Deseret News, April 4,
1998; Albert Fritz interview with Leslie G. Kelen, Febru-
ary 24, 1983, box 2, fd. 6, Interviews with Blacks in Utah,
1982–1988, JWML; James E. Dooley interview with Les-
lie G. Kelen, December 6, 1983, interview 8, tape 104, Ev-
erett C. Cooley Oral History Project, JWML. Fritz and
Dooley were past presidents of the NAACP.
87 Swenson and Moore, “LDS Leader to Keynote Confer-
ence.”
88 That relationship continues to this day. In 2018, the
LDS church began a partnership with the NAACP to
work together on education and employment initia-
tives for black Americans. Danielle Christensen, “LDS
Church and NAACP Announce Plans for Education and
Employment Initiatives,” Church News, July 17, 2018,
accessed December 20, 2019, lds.org/church/news/lds
-church-and-naacp-announce-plans-for-education
-and-employment-initiatives?lang=eng; David Noyce,
“Mormon Leaders Again Meet with NAACP Brass as
Work on Joint Education, Jobs Initiative Continues,”
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 21
Salt Lake Tribune, October 6, 2018.
89 Gordon Bitner Hinckley, Discourses of President Gor-
don B. Hinckley—Volume 1: 1995–1999 (Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book, 2005), 532–38 (quote on 533).
90 John L. Hart, “Fathers Needed as ‘Pillars of Strength,’”
Church News, May 2, 1998, accessed December 20, 2019, lds
churchnews.com/archive/1998–05–02/fathers-needed
-as-pillars-of-strength-13445; see also Kristen Moulton,
“Mormon President Addresses NAACP,” Associated
Press, April 25, 1998, accessed December 20, 2019, apnews
.com/71112137fd737f6e1cef4cabeee26abe; and “News of
the Church—NAACP Leadership Meeting,” Ensign, July
1998, 74.
91 Matthew Harris telephone conversation with Jeanetta
Williams, June 11, 2019; Williams email to Harris, June
1
12, 2019.
N O .
92 Matthew Harris telephone conversation with Darius
Gray, January 20, 2016.
93 For Bordeaux’s bill (H.B. 302), see le.utah.gov/~2000/bills
I
/hbillint/HB0302.pdf; for Suazo’s bill (S.B. 121), see
le.utah.gov/~2000/bills/sbillint/SB0121.pdf, both ac-
8 8
cessed December 20, 2019. For Williams’s collaboration
with Suazo and Bourdeaux, see Petrie, “The MLK holi-
V O L .
day,” 55; and especially Williams, “History of the Name
Change of Human Rights Day to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Day and Utah’s Constitution Amendment,” July 30, 2018,
Matthew Harris files (courtesy of Jeanetta Williams).
I
94 “Will Utah Rename Holiday for King?” Deseret News,
U H Q
January 17, 2000; see also Lindsay Palmer, “Legislature
Opens Holiday,” Daily Universe, January 13, 2000.
95 Susan Whitney, “Remember King: Songs, Prayers,
Talks and Tears on Rights Day,” Deseret News, January
18, 2000.
96 NAACP Salt Lake Branch, accessed December 20, 2019, 21
naacp-saltlakebranch.org/branch-activities.html; Wil-
liams, “History of the Name Change”; Petrie, “The
MLK Holiday,” 55.
97 Lee Davidson, “Former Utah House Speaker Named
Chief Lobbyist for Mormon Church,” Salt Lake Tri-
bune, September 22, 2017; Dillon, “Will Utah Rename
Holiday for King?”
98 For passage of the bill after the revised vote, see Jordan
Tanner, Committee Chair, to Marty Stephens, House
Speaker, February 7, 2000, le.utah.gov/~2000/comreport
/HB306H10.pdf; Max Roth, “Utah Was the Last State
to Name MLK Day, and It Came Close to Failing,”
Fox 13 Salt Lake City, January 15, 2018, fox13now.com
/2018/01/15/utah-was-last-state-to-name-mlk-day
-and-it-came-close-to-failing/; and “Utah Designates
Dr. King’s Birthday a Holiday; Last State to Adopt the
Day,” Jet, April 24, 2000, 4, which comments that two
representatives missed the initial vote, but the bill “was
revived after two absent legislators were called to over-
turn the vote and get the bill to the floor.”
99 For Leavitt signing the bill into law, March 16, 2000,
see le.utah.gov/~2000/htmdoc/sbillhtm/SB0121.htm,
accessed December 20, 2019; see also Lucinda Dillon,
“Leavitt Praised as He Signs Law Designating King
Day,” Deseret News, April 6, 2000; Petrie, “The MLK
Holiday,” 55.
100 Dillon, “Leavitt Praised as He Signs Law Designating
King Day.”
101 “The Globe Reacts to Gordon B. Hinckley’s Passing,”
Salt Lake Tribune, January 29, 2008; see also “Tributes
to President Hinckley,” Ensign, March 2008, 4.
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 1
N O .

Race, Latter-day Saint Doctrine,

I
8 8

and Athletics at Utah State University,

V O L .

1960–1961
I
U H Q

BY JE SS I C A MA R I E N E LSO N

22
Utah State University’s 1960–1961 school year was a particularly tumul-
tuous 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 Jan-
uary, USU president Daryl Chase called a meeting with the school’s Af-
rican 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 en-
titled 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 inter-
national 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 Mormon-
ism was the fulcrum.

UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 22 3/13/20 12:55 PM


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 centu-
ry Utah has primarily focused on discrimina-
tory 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 to-
ward racial equality and social changes in the
state. The 1960–1961 school year at Utah State
was a year in which conservative white alum-
ni, 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 pre-
dominantly white institutions and states in the
country—but the frictions created that year of-
fer 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 with-
in the civil rights movement, although it is
more indicative of its location within the West
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 23
1
N O .
I
8 8
V O L .
I
U H Q
23
than representative of the freedom struggle as a
whole. While students at Utah State were debat-
ing whether Latter-day Saints were prejudiced
and exclusionary, segregationists violently ri-
oted on the University of Georgia’s campus in
January 1961 in direct response to the court-or-
dered 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 segrega-
tion.5 In contrast, Utah State, like other colleges
and universities outside of the South, had ad-
mitted 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 com-
pleted 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 en-
demic part of society even though certain color
barriers had been broken or were not as stark
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 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 second-
to-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 Lov-
ing v. Virginia (1967), cultural and institutional
1
prejudice against interracial marriage was dis-
N O .
tinct in Utah compared to other states in its re-
gion in the early 1960s.8
I
Knowing that interracial relationships—espe-
8 8
cially between white women and black men—
V O L .
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
I
African American athletes on USU’s athletic
U H Q
teams on January 15, 1961, to address the issue.
According to news reports, the administrators
wanted to inform them “of public criticism di-
24 rected at USU regarding the number of black
students on campus and their social activi-
ties.”9 At this meeting, Chase took the oppor-
tunity to strongly advise these black students
against interracial dating. A later Salt Lake Tri-
bune 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-of-
state 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 Leb-
ohner 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 oth-
er hand, Sutton, an African American basket-
ball player, was described as “6 feet 3 inches
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 24
tall with a physique of classic proportions, but
rather heavy facial features.” The two started
dating the summer before Lebohner’s fresh-
man year at Alfred University, a racially in-
tegrated campus in New York.11 After both
students dropped out of school, Dorothy’s par-
ents 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 Uni-
versity’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 read-
ers a rhetorical question: “Is marriage between
a white girl and a Negro morally permissible?
Or practically possible?” Bird queried a few Af-
rican 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 respon-
sible parties for averting racial issues—rather
than making a commitment to racial equality.13
“We are very inexperienced (in Negro-white re-
lationships) on this campus,” Chase stated, “and
I don’t think we could avoid this sort of thing,”
referring to the “irreparable damage” the nega-
tive 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 com-
munity well, sympathized with the broader op-
position 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 con-
cerning USU’s racial policy and required the
administrators to try to set the record straight—
that USU had no racial policy—on multiple occa-
sions over the next few weeks.
According to senior Tom Jones, the edi-
tor-in-chief of Student Life, the truth of what
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 actually transpired at that meeting “played
little part . . . as some students eagerly heard,
accepted, and passed on some sad stories con-
cerning 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 pe-
nalized for accepting dates with “the Negroes.”
Vice President Merrill wrote to Chase on Jan-
uary 21 about the rumors and noted that “the
campus is seething (the description of a reason-

1
ably judicious informant) with the report that

N O .
you called all of the Negro students in and is-
sued an ultimatum to the effect that interracial
dating would result in immediate expulsion of

I
the Negro involved.”15 Merrill likely overstated

8 8
the reaction to Chase’s meeting with the black

V O L .
students by saying that the whole campus was
“seething.”16 Generational differences between
the administration and students likely played

I
a role in Merrill’s perception of how vocal the

campus community opposition was, and per-
haps he was surprised to hear that even a few
people would be upset if the rumors about ex-
pulsion for interracial dating were true.
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 irriga-
tion 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 advis-
ing 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 person-
al 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 personal-
ly about the subject as a problem of the school.
U H Q
25
Daryl Chase, president of USU from 1954–1968.
Courtesy Special Collections, USU, USU-A0915b.
All our policies deal with students—not race.”19
While there was no segregation policy at USU
and the university operated under the prem-
ise 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 Con-
stitution, and in the Faculty Code, are dealing
with human beings. As such, it makes no ra-
cial distinction; and in harmony with this, the
school is administered.”21 The void of a statu-
tory 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 administra-
tors and the community to any conscious racial
equality.
The sudden discussion of race issues on cam-
pus probably prompted the administration

UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 25 3/13/20 12:55 PM

 to launch an investigation into the academic
standing of the few “Negro students on cam-
pus.” Although small in number, black male stu-
dents were particularly visible because of their
high profile on athletic teams. J. Elliot Camer-
on reported to Chase on January 21, 1961, that
there were only twelve black students on cam-
pus: 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
1
to Chase in an undated document retained in
N O .
Chase’s papers.23 “President,” Cameron began,
“the two girls listed are in good standing. . . . All
other students are on probation because of low
I
fall grades, or low cumulative grades.”
8 8
V O L .
In the process of evaluating the academic per-
formance of USU’s black students, the admin-
istrators failed to take into consideration the
ways in which racism had already impacted
I
the educational experiences of those students
U H Q
at the primary, secondary, and university levels.
Darnel Haney, a member of the 1960–1961 bas-
ketball team, did not attend school with white
26 students until his freshman year of high school,
having gone to segregated schools in his home-
town 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 Al-
though 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 re-
lated 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 expres-
sion “there must be a nigger in the wood pile”
in Haney’s presence. This set of economic, ed-
ucational, 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 pro-
bation meant for these student athletes, but
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 26
evidence suggests that at least one community
member hoped that USU would turn black stu-
dents away based on the racist assumption that
black students were more disposed to immor-
al and criminal behavior. “Please believe me,”
Wayne B. Garff wrote to Chase in February of
1961,
You will have plenty of backing in
taking a strong stand on the racial
issue. . . . We feel sure that the major-
ity of people are greatly incensed over
the inroads and demands of a small
minority. Many of us feel that the pen-
dulum has swung too far too quickly
in permitting our colored associates
to have unusual privileges because
of a rabid minority. On the issue of
morals, we encourage you to dismiss
from the college any persons who
will not uphold the moral standards
of our institution and of our state and
federal laws. Most of us are perfectly
willing to permit people to have free-
doms as long as they do not impose
on our equal freedoms. . . . We want
you to know that we are behind you in
upholding the dignity and integrity of
our Alma Mater.27
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 pop-
ulation 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 in-
formed 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
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 racial barriers in the state, including on college
campuses. They perceived the presence of Afri-
can 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 mem-
orandum dated January 25, 1961, ten days after
Chase’s meeting with the black students, Chase
recorded that he “received a call from Trust-
ee Evans, who seemed quite concerned about
the rumors in Salt Lake about the relationships
between Haynie [sic] and a girl in North Lo-
gan 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 experi-
enced 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 se-
cretly to avoid the negative attention that could
potentially jeopardize their athletic careers.30
Even though social acceptance was condition-
al at best for African American students, USU
administrators seemed to think that the uni-
versity was making gains in developing a mul-
ticultural 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 hu-
man 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
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 27
segregation in public transportation, provided
some perspective for USU administrators eval-
uating their campus. Colleges across the coun-
try 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.
1
While Chase publicly spoke of accommodat-
N O .
ing racial and ethnic diversity on campus and
affirmed that the only means of judgment was
based on academic merit, underneath all of
I
that public posturing was the truth of the mat-
8 8
ter: neither he nor the local community wanted
V O L .
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
I
from a local attorney, L. D. Naisbitt, who disap-
U H Q
proved of USU’s recruitment of black athletes.
Naisbitt wanted to “give Basket Ball [sic] to the
white boys. . . . Generally speaking [black ath-
letes] are no permanent good to the University 27
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 opin-
ion 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 Ida-
ho had each supplied USU with two players.35
Naisbitt’s explicit aversion to black players on
USU’s basketball team and his disdain of na-
tional recruiting (read as recruitment of black
players) in favor of local recruiting stemmed
from an underlying desire to maintain the ex-
isting 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 athlet-
ic programs. “As you know,” wrote Chase, “our
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 doors are open to all academically qualified
students, regardless of their nationality, race, or
religion. This is the policy and spirit of the Uni-
versity. We segregate and eliminate students
only on the basis of scholastic achievement and
character.”36 Chase wanted to keep USU’s foot-
ball and basketball teams competitive, rather
than “second or third-rate,” and did not want
these programs to be cut for the sake of keep-
ing the teams stocked with only white players.
USU’s in-state competition, the University of
Utah, had black athletes on its athletic teams,
1
upon his arrival from California or that Mor-
monism would be a part of it. In his autobiog-
raphy, 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 peo-
ple and quickly learned that Salt Lake City op-
erated like a segregated city. Costa took McGill
to a diner that refused to serve him before Cos-
ta convinced the waitress to make an exception
to the restaurant’s segregated service policy. At
that point, McGill was unaware of the existing

including national superstar Bill McGill, who racism in Utah and in the LDS faith: “No one
N O .

joined the Utes basketball team in 1958. McGill, told me of the sad and unfortunate racism that
a native of Los Angeles, created an impressive permeates the culture of beautiful Utah. No-
résumé at the University of Utah. In 1961 he led body told me how Mormon scripture specifi-
I

the Utes to a NCAA Final Four appearance and, cally states that black people are descendants
8 8

during his senior year in 1961–1962, he notched of evil, and that black men aren’t even allowed
V O L .

an impressive 38.8 points per game. McGill did to become full members in the lay priesthood
not expect that he would be met with racism of the Mormon Church.”37
I
U H Q

28

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.

UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 28 3/13/20 12:55 PM

 Chase claimed he had no issue with coaches re-
cruiting 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 mov-
ing 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 synon-
ymous with professional sports than amateur
athletics.38
While university administrators dealt with
queries into USU’s racial policies and pres-
sure from alumni and trustees to maintain
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 29
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 pro-
fessor of journalism, editor of publications
at Utah State University, and a faculty advi-
sor to the school’s newspaper, Student Life,
when he published Mormonism and the Ne-
gro in 1960. Stewart had three other books in
print that displayed his knack for writing on
Mormon-oriented historical themes: Joseph
1
Smith: Democracy’s Unknown Prophet, Thom-
N O .
as Jefferson and the Restoration of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ, and The Eternal Gift: The Story
of the Crucifixion and Resurrection.39 An arti-
I
cle appearing in the December 14, 1960, Stu-
8 8
dent Life featured Stewart and his new book,
V O L .
The Eternal Gift, wherein Stewart was quoted
as saying, “In all literature there is only one
I
U H Q
29
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 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 Pro-
fessor 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 read-
ers were Latter-day Saints or already familiar
with the LDS church, and LDS viewpoints and
news were readily represented.40 The author
1
of the Stewart article illustrated this by stat-
N O .
ing that the book was “given to church and
other groups during the Christmas and Easter
seasons” where “church” signified the LDS
I
church and “other groups” likely referred to
8 8
minority denominations in the area.41
V O L .
Further evidence of a prominent LDS influence
and readership of Student Life is the frequent
advertisement of events at the LDS Insti-
I
tute of Religion on campus. One such notice
U H Q
announced Elder Howard W. Hunter as the
headline speaker at the annual Joseph Smith
Memorial event to be held at the LDS Institute
30 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 jus-
tify 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 sup-
port for a black race restriction on priesthood
was an underlying belief that being born black
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 30
was also a societal curse. “In our society today,”
Stewart wrote, “from which situation is the Ne-
gro 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 ab-
solved 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 ul-
timately placed a spirit in a cursed black body.
“If you say this Church is unjust in not allow-
ing 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 Ne-
gro, 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 extend-
ing brotherly Christian love to the Negro . . .
[that] does not and should not include inter-
marriage, for we would bring upon our chil-
dren the curse of Cain, or rather, we would
bring unto ourselves children from those spir-
its destined to be the seed of Cain.”47 Mormon-
ism’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 par-
ticipating 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 mem-
bers would make it theologically and prac-
tically impossible to participate fully in LDS
culture and religious activity.
While his statements did not carry the
same weight and authority, Stewart’s views
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 broadly represented those of church leaders.
In a speech delivered at an education confer-
ence at Brigham Young University in 1954, LDS
church apostle Mark E. Petersen reminded his
audience what was at stake if interracial mar-
riage became accepted and widespread:
Now what is our policy in regard to
inter-marriage? As to the Negro, of
course, there is only one possible
answer. We must not inter-marry with
the Negro. Why? If I were to marry a
Negro woman and have children by
her, my children would all be cursed
as to the priesthood. Do I want my
children cursed as to the priesthood?
If there is one drop of Negro blood in
my children, as I have read to you, they
receive the curse. There isn’t any argu-
ment, therefore, as to inter-marriage
with the Negro, is there? There are 50
million Negroes in the United States. If
they were to achieve complete absorp-
tion with the white race, think what
that would do. With 50 million Negroes
inter-married with us, where would
the priesthood be? Who could hold it,
in all America? Think what that would
do to the work of the church!49
According to Petersen, black assimilation into
the white race by way of interracial marriage
would result in a cursed, racially mixed soci-
ety whose members would be ineligible for full
church participation. LDS teachings added an-
other 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 Rela-
tionships and Faculty Welfare. On January 13,
1961, Taylor and Daniel requested that Stew-
art be censured for the use of his university
title and position on the book’s title page, an
action that they argued implied the universi-
ty’s sanction for content that they “violently
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 31
opposed.”50 Taylor also requested that Stew-
art 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 pub-
lishing 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,
While as the subject of your letter I
1
have no objection to its publication—
N O .
an author will profit by criticism, be it
good or bad—yet as editor I do have a
responsibility to the University as to
I
what appears in its publications. . . .
8 8
And you yourself in your letter pro-
V O L .
vide at least four reasons why it should
not be; e.g., “The faculty of Utah State
University—in their official capacity
as faculty members—ought to have
I
exactly nothing to do either in attack-
U H Q
ing or supporting the doctrines of the
Mormon church.”51
Stewart also responded directly to the Commit- 31
tee on Professional Relationships and Faculty
Welfare, further demonstrating his view that
the university should be supportive of and sub-
servient to Latter-day Saint racial viewpoints
because Latter-day Saints were its “major pub-
lic.” 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 un-
derstanding 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. Af-
ter the university’s Committee on Profession-
al Relations and Faculty Welfare launched an
inquiry into whether Stewart should be cen-
sured for the book, Stewart wrote the com-
mittee, 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 prac-
tically all of whom are Christians? And is not
this goodwill and support dependent, in turn,
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 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 re-
assurance 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 concern-
ing blacks, but if this doctrine was properly
understood, Stewart argued, members “would
not feel critical of it.” While he certainly cared
1
about his own name and reputation as an em-
N O .
ployee of the university, Stewart defended his
work because of how it would assuage the
collective conscience of Latter-day Saints and
I
the USU majority within the broader context
8 8
of progressive and changing ideas of racial
V O L .
equality and civil rights.53
Still, there were university students and reli-
gious groups who were concerned about racial
I
inequality and sought ways to improve racial
U H Q
equality and to make international and racial
minority students feel more welcome on cam-
pus. A close reading of news reports shows
32 that the local LDS constituency largely sat on
the sidelines in this movement. The Salt Lake
Tribune reported that it was the Unitarian Fel-
lowship on campus that sought a meeting with
the administration to ask for clarification of
USU’s racial policy.54 Another article indicat-
ed 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 at-
tracted, the advisor of the Unitarian Fellow-
ship 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 re-
cent 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 be-
lieved that it had a responsibility to help USU
students of all races, ethnicities, and national-
ities “feel wanted and accepted. Only by deal-
ing with these problems openly, and in the
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 32
democratic tradition, can we build a sound
foundation for the future.”55
Alongside the Unitarian Fellowship, the Lu-
theran 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 Stu-
dent–Foreign Student Relations Committee,
wanted international students to experience
a greater welcome than that currently offered
by the community.56 This committee—also re-
ferred to as the International–American Stu-
dent 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 stu-
dent athletes such as Darnel Haney had to
learn how to navigate and in which the clus-
ter of controversies surrounding race at USU
occurred. Although USU allowed African
Americans to compete on its collegiate athlet-
ic teams—BYU did not have a black basketball
player on its team until 1974—some of the ath-
letes 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 tradi-
tions: “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 commu-
nity 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 con-
tributed to a sense of superiority. However, he
continued to rationalize this situation, stating,
“Mormons’ concept of one group’s being supe-
rior to another” was parallel to ancient Greeks,
Judaism, and Japanese Shintoism, cultural
groups who also drew ethnic boundaries to re-
inforce 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 doc-
toral training at the University of Chicago and
became an administrator at various LDS In-
stitutes before accepting a position as Dean of
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 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” popula-
tion were interchangeable and, for all intents
and purposes, synonymous. When Chase com-
pared 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 de-
bate 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 edito-
rial 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 opin-
ion and not official church doctrine. However,
Spence went on to write that he was “complete-
ly opposed” to the temple and priesthood race
restrictions because “in practice it does seem to
give some religious support (mainly due to per-
sonal interpretations) to discrimination, and
as such is morally unacceptable.” In the same
issue of Student Life, another letter writer lik-
ened Mormon ideology to authoritarian rule in
communist China:
We have something of a parallel to
face close at home. The book Mor-
monism and the Negro is written
from an authoritarian point of view.
It condemns all members of the LDS
Church who do not hold to the ideas
in the book. . . . I hope hundreds of
thousands of Mormon people, who
reject a doctrine which is so un-Chris-
tian, so un-democratic, so un-Ameri-
can, and so unreasonable and so con-
trary to all the light thrown upon the
nature of man and the universe that
mankind has been able to accumulate
since honest science began to operate
in the western world. If we have to
hate, let’s hate harmful ideologies and
not people.62
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 33
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 child-
hood 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
1
from the harm which came upon India due to
N O .
the acceptance of this so-called rational expla-
nation of a harmful teaching.”63
I
Hoping to clarify the “Mormon viewpoint,”
8 8
Paul Griffin, a sophomore student active in
V O L .
the LDS Delta fraternity, responded to Spen-
ce’s comments with his own letter to the edi-
tor.64 While he agreed with Spence that black
people should not be denied the rights of “life,
I
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Griffin
U H Q
affirmed that Stewart’s thesis was supported
by official church doctrine. Griffin also spoke
to the experience of LDS students encounter-
ing criticism of Mormon theology from faculty 33
on campus, something he thought was inap-
propriate 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 reli-
gion 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 prej-
udice no different than that to which many
have already objected.”65
The public discussion of Stewart’s book of-
fered an opportunity for other opposing view-
points 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 Wash-
ington 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 lack-
ing in many of the people in Utah, particularly
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 those persons of the LDS Church.” Bunting
went on to say that “until these people are
willing to give their time, and possibly mon-
ey, 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 con-
tinue 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 con-
1
tinued to shift the conversation toward the
N O .
larger problems they had with the dominant
Mormon culture. Bob Atlas, a member of the
“open-minded” pseudo-fraternity Mu that in-
I
cluded women, wrote: “There is separation of
8 8
state in this nation. If there isn’t, maybe Utah
V O L .
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
I
beliefs. Why not give Utah a chance to come up
U H Q
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
34 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 commu-
nity of Logan while finishing her bachelor’s
degree sparked her curiosity about Mormon-
ism and served as a catalyst for her productive
career. Shipps wrote about this telling year in
her book Sojourner in the Promised Land: For-
ty 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
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 34
The 1960–1961 school year at Utah State Uni-
versity provides fruitful grounds to examine
Utah’s twentieth-century racial history. Un-
anticipated debate ensued in the aftermath
of university president Daryl Chase’s meeting
with black students in January 1961. Interest-
ed persons on both sides questioned the uni-
versity’s racial policy. USU’s administration
cited a policy of dealing with students and
not race and yet responded by placing the re-
sponsibility of handling such issues on the few
male black students who were already pre-
cariously 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 sta-
tus. 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 in-
equality on campus for the first time.71 Mor-
monism and the Negro prompted interesting
discussions of what kind of academic and reli-
gious freedom should be offered to faculty and
students of the LDS faith on a secular campus
within the predominantly LDS setting of Lo-
gan, Utah. This episode ultimately sheds light
on the ways that LDS doctrine and practice,
combined with racism and conservative pol-
itics, affected African Americans and shaped
racial conflict in mid-twentieth-century Utah.
It also demonstrates how racism within Mor-
monism 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, Febru-
ary 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 Og-
den, Utah: 1910–1950” (master’s thesis, Utah State Uni-
versity, 1994); Margaret Judy Maag, “Discrimination
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 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 Quar-
terly 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 Uni-
versity 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 segre-
gation, see “Series of WSB-TV Newsfilm Clips of State-
ments 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, ac-
cessed 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 Pub-
lishing, 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. Nor-
ton, 1998), 278–310.
8 For an excellent review of interracial marriage laws in
Utah, see Patrick Q. Mason, “The Prohibition of Inter-
racial 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 subse-
quent meeting to discuss racial issues on campus.
17 Jacob W. Kijne, letter to the editor, Utah State Stu-
dent 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 Sep-
tember 20, 2019, tools.bard.edu/files/events/file.php
?eid=101963.
18 Although Utah State was a predominantly white in-
stitution, there was a considerable international con-
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 35
stituency 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 de-
grees were awarded to international students, includ-
ing 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
1
Commencement, June 9, 1961, USU Digital Commons,
N O .
accessed August 30, 2019, digitalcommons.usu.edu
/commencement.
19 Untitled note, January 21, 1961, box 36, fd. 5, Chase Pa-
I
pers.
20 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva argues that colorblind racism
8 8
took the place of state-legitimated discrimination in
the post–Civil Rights era to reinforce white privilege.
V O L .
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
I
Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Ra-
U H Q
cial Inequality in America, 4th ed. (Lanham, MD: Row-
man 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 35
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 Octo-
ber 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 on-
line, 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 re-
search suggested that by the time African American stu-
dents 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 expe-
rience 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 Opportu-
nity” (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 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.
1
29 “Memorandum,” January 25, 1961, box 36, fd. 5, Chase
N O .
Papers.
30 “Haney Interview, 5.” From Haney’s point of view,
opportunities for civil rights activism in Logan were
I
nonexistent. Even if Logan’s small group of African
Americans were able to find a way to be involved,
8 8
Haney felt that it would likely have jeopardized their
athletic careers and upset campus administrators and
V O L .
the community.
31 “Truth Plays No Part.”
32 Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, “The 1960s and the Trans-
formation of Campus Cultures,” History of Education
I
Quarterly 26 (Spring 1986): 1–38. As Horowitz points
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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 survey-
ing the campus scene in 1959 could have predicted the
36 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 Autobi-
ography of a Forgotten Basketball Legend (Lincoln: Uni-
versity 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 promi-
nently 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
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 36
LDS population at USU was about 86 percent, while the
LDS population of Utah as a whole was about 60 per-
cent. Research by Utah demographer Pam Perlich has
demonstrated that the LDS population has declined
over time. See Lindsay Whitehurst, “As Mormon Mis-
sionaries 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 reit-
erated 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 New-
ell 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 dis-
qualified 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 Mem-
bers 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 Re-
lations,” Utah State Student Life, January 27, 1961.
57 John Cannon, “Recent Events Aim Toward Better Re-
lations,” 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
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 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, in-
terview, 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.
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

1
60 “Portrait of a President,” USU Magazine, Winter 1966, Press, 2006), 371–72, 387.

N O .
6–9. 70 Shipps, Sojourner, 364–67.
61 Untitled note, January 21, 1961, Chase Papers. 71 M. R. Merrill to Daryl Chase, January 21, 1961, Chase
Papers.

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38

Cover of the 1961 Green Book. Courtesy New York Public Library.

UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 38 3/13/20 12:55 PM

 Utah in the Green Book:

1
Segregation and the Hospitality Industry

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in the Beehive State

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BY C H RIST IN E CO O P E R - R O MPATO

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In February 2019, Green Book won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The film follows the travels of pianist Don Shirley on a concert tour
through the Midwest and South before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made
segregation illegal. Its title refers to The Negro Motorist Green Book, a tour 39
guide designed to list safe places for African Americans to eat, spend the
night, and find other amenities when traveling across the United States
when many establishments throughout the nation were “white only.”1
Victor Hugo Green, a postal employee from Harlem, published the Green
Book under his own imprint from 1936 until his death in 1960, with a
short gap during World War II; his wife, Alma Green, continued as ed-
itor after Victor’s death.2 Green collected listings of hotels, restaurants,
gas stations, and other businesses that catered to African Americans, and
he encouraged readers to submit recommendations for locations to be
included in the guide: in early editions, the author suggested, “There are
thousands of places that the public doesn’t know about and aren’t listed.
Perhaps you might know of some? If so send in their names and address-
es and the kind of business, so that we might pass it along to the rest of
your fellow Motorists.”3

The Green Book and a similar guidebook, the Travelguide: Vacation and
Recreation without Humiliation, which was published between 1946
and 1957, portrayed African Americans as confident, mobile, American
consumers.4 The guides argued that businesses would see the power of
economics and welcome African Americans.5 Despite such an optimis-
tic outlook, a number of states—including Utah—lagged behind in listing
businesses that welcomed African Americans.6

With this article, my purpose is to explore the hotels that were open to
African Americans in Utah and to understand how they fit within the
fabric of the state. My argument is threefold. First, hotel proprietors

UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 39 3/13/20 12:55 PM

 and guests often grappled with questions,
searches, and arrests by the local police; the
owners and guests could also be the victims of
violence, some of it racially motivated. These
hotels were often located in economically
challenged parts of town, meaning that black
tourists were routed to the low rent district.
Second, they were often owned or operated by
African American women, and hotel owner-
ship could at times be a viable way for these
women to advance economically. Last but not
least, these businesses frequently became im-
1
portant political and social gathering places
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for African Americans.
gh
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8 8
In the early 1900s, Utah’s cities offered a vari-
ety of hotels for overnight white guests. Most
V O L .
prominent among these hotels in Salt Lake City
were the Hotel Utah, established in 1911 and
largely funded by the Church of Jesus Christ
I
of Latter-day Saints; the Newhouse Hotel, built
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in 1912 by mining magnate Samuel Newhouse,
a son of Russian Jewish immigrants, and the
Peery Hotel, opened in 1911 and built by the
40 Peery brothers.7 Salt Lake City was a travel des-
tination for so-called Mormon tourism: Lat-
ter-day Saints and others visiting the church’s
headquarters. This provided the state with
much revenue, and it not until the late 1940s
did state officials started to advertise aggres-
sively for other kinds of tourists.8 After World
War II, increased spendable income, vacation
time, and the affordability of automobiles all
contributed to the rise in Americans’ mobility.
The segregation of hotel spaces, however, con-
tinued to persist in Utah until the mid-1960s
with the passing of the Civil Rights Act.
Governmental support of segregated accom-
modations stretched back to the nineteenth
century. As F. Ross Peterson explains, the Su-
preme Court’s 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision
opened the floodgates for legally segregating
numerous aspects of daily life, and Utah was
among the many states with laws segregating
housing, public accommodations, theaters, and
restaurants.9 Bernice Benns, who was born in
1932 and moved to Salt Lake City in 1946, ex-
plained that as an African American teenager,
“We saw a lot of movies. Of course, we saw
them in the balcony. Because you couldn’t go
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 40
down the stairs in a movie at that time.”10 When
an interviewer asked further about what she
had experienced, Benns elaborated:
There were certain restaurants that
you couldn’t go in. Like, right now,
the Utah Cafe which sits up on Main
Street. I can remember when you
couldn’t—when Blacks couldn’t go in
there. If you go in, and every table was
vacant but maybe two, they’d say, oh,
it’s all reserved. You couldn’t go there.
The Hotel Utah. Blacks couldn’t live
there. Couldn’t get a room there.11
Accounts abound of famous African American
performers—including Marian Anderson, Ella
Fitzgerald, and Harry Belafonte—who per-
formed in Salt Lake City’s white-only hotels
and were forbidden to eat or stay in those loca-
tions.12 Even though a 1948 Utah law made de
jure segregation illegal, “de facto segregation
policies persisted for another decade.” Repeat-
ed efforts to strengthen the state’s civil rights
legislation failed on Capitol Hill throughout
the 1940s and 1950s.13
Prominent African American newspapers also
attest to the difficultly black performers had
finding hotels in Utah. Although geographical-
ly Salt Lake City could be a convenient stopover
for national tours, culturally it could be very
difficult for African Americas. In 1946, Nor-
man Grantz sponsored a cross-country tour of
African American musicians titled “Jazz at the
Philharmonic.” Grantz would only book perfor-
mances where audiences were mixed: “If Ne-
groes and whites are forced to sit by side at his
concerts they will lose many of their prejudic-
es,” he asserted. When asked what he thought
about hotels, however, he said they were still
a problem; Salt Lake City, for example, was
described by Grantz as “like . . . South Caroli-
na.”14 This comparison of Utah and the West in
general with the South was frequently invoked
during the decades of segregation.
Over a decade after Grantz likened Salt Lake
City to South Carolina, Alice Dunnigan laid
bare the discrimination faced by African Amer-
icans as well as other people of color in Utah.
Writing in the Kansas City, Kansas, Plaindealer,
Dunnigan noted that
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 A considerable number of restaurants
in various cities in Utah have admitted
that they do not serve Negroes, Mex-
icans, Indians or Orientals. Negroes
are refused service in hotels, motels,
motor and trailer courts, restaurants,
bars, taverns, bowling alleys, night
clubs, pool- halls, dance halls, swim-
ming pools and other places of enter-
tainment and recreation in Salt Lake
City and Ogden, Utah.15
The LDS church was often blamed for Utah’s
slowness in adopting civil rights legislation.
For example, in 1959, the Utah Senate killed
a civil rights measure, leading to the head-
line “NAACP Scores Mormons for Blocking
Bill” and an assertion that the lobbying by
the Restaurant Association and Apartment
House Owners Association won out, because
the legislation did not have the strong sup-
port of the church.16 Several black interview-
ees who participated in an oral history project
addressed the particularly strong racial preju-
dice they encountered in the state because of
the church and the culture it promoted in the
state. In 1983, Benns recounted to the inter-
viewee what she told her children: “I explain
to them that in a place like Utah, you are not
going to get the type of chances that other kids
get. . . . It’s nothing against you, it’s just the
way people see it in Utah.”17 Wilfred Bocage,
vice president of the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
Salt Lake chapter in 1983, related how, when
he first arrived in Utah some years earlier, he
came with the knowledge that the LDS church
did not allow African Americans to hold the
priesthood: “I could not be a Priest. So that
said to me that . . . I’m going to be going into
an environment that’s going to consider me
less than a full fledged citizen.” He then de-
scribed how he saw that attitude extended “in
everyday business, that goes on in this state.”18
Several other interviewees directly related
the refusal of the LDS church to admit African
American men to the priesthood until 1978
with the extent and vehemence of the racial
prejudice they faced while living in Utah. Ac-
counts like these suggest that African Ameri-
can tourists traveling through Utah must have
experienced discrimination in their day-to-
day encounters.
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 41
In July 1964, the U.S. enacted the Civil Rights
Act, which prohibited discrimination in pub-
lic accommodations including housing, ho-
tels, restaurants, and entertainment venues.
Despite this national law (and earlier city and
state laws), business owners continued to turn
African Americans away in many states. Alfred
Fritz, president of the Salt Lake chapter of the
NAACP in 1964, described how under the fed-
eral law “a person who registers a complaint of
discrimination must wait 120 days to receive
redress.” He and others had advocated unsuc-
1
cessfully for Utah to pass civil rights legislation
N O .
for fourteen legislative sessions. In 1965, Utah
finally passed the Public Accommodations
Act, which protected African Americans from
I
discrimination in Utah establishments.19 This
8 8
of course did not end racial discrimination in
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housing, as many accounts of men and women
of color describe difficulties in renting apart-
ments and purchasing homes in Utah after the
I
passing of the Public Accommodations Act.
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Because of these challenges that African Amer-
ican travelers faced while journeying through
Utah, travel guides like the Green Book were de-
sirable and necessary. What follows is a chrono- 41
logical discussion of the Utah hotels included in
the Green Book with a brief history, as gleaned
from newspaper accounts and tax records. Be-
cause I rely heavily newspaper records in this
research, the events that are reported are large-
ly shaped by what a white newspaper-reading
audience would have been interested in con-
suming: accounts of violence enacted by people
of color. These statistics about black violence
(as well as accounts of racialized violence)
were then used to shore up and enforce Jim
Crow attitudes and laws.20 In other words, one
way that white people justified segregation to
themselves and others was by citing statistics
and accounts of the criminality of people of col-
or. Salt Lake City newspapers, in emphasizing
this violence, were not just passive reflections
of events but rather shapers of the attitudes
of whites and perpetuators of discrimination
against people of color.
The New Hotel J. H.
Between 1936 and 1939, the Green Book con-
tained no listings at all for Utah. Most African
Americans driving cross-country at this time
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42

Salt Lake City businesses that appeared in the Green Book from the 1940s to the 1960s, as shown on a present-day
map of the city. Map created by Deb Miller. Utah Division of State History.

UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 42 3/13/20 12:55 PM

 could take a more southerly route and bypass
Utah altogether: Interstate-80 had yet to be
constructed. Those African Americans who
traveled to Utah often stayed with friends or
family; black newspapers across the country
contain social announcements of those travel-
ing and their sojourns with friends and extend-
ed family. Of course, just because a venue was
not listed in the Green Book did not mean that it
did not exist; there might have been hotels and
tourist homes open to African Americans in the
1930s.21
The 1940 edition of the Green Book introduced
one Utah listing: “the New Hotel J. H.” in Salt
Lake City, located at 250 West South Tem-
ple.22 The advertisement proclaimed it was
“the newest and best hotel West of Chicago
and East of Los Angeles.” Rooms were fifty and
seventy-five cents a day or four dollars a week.
An advertisement from 1941 in the Salt Lake
Telegram touted “hot and cold running water
in all outside rms. Radios,” with the rates hav-
ing increased to one dollar for one person and
$1.50 for two.23 According to city directories
and newspaper advertising, James H. Hamp-
ton, an African American who had previously
worked as a chauffeur for a taxicab company,
owned and managed the hotel.24 In 1946, the
city directories began to list Ida M. Hampton,
his widow, as hotel manager.25 The New Hotel
J. H. continued to be the lone listing for Utah in
the Green Book until the late 1940s.26
The late 1940s proved to be an extraordinarily
difficult time for Ida Hampton as she was the
victim of a violent racist attack on her home.
The Salt Lake Telegram reported that on March
17, 1948, “Two Salt Lake county men, alleged
ringleaders of a juvenile gang of 10 boys and
two girls . . . demolished the interior of an
unoccupied house.” Alfred Smith and Ralph
Middleton, two white men from the Chester-
field neighborhood, admitted to taking part
in “the almost total destruction of a two story
frame house” owned by Hampton at 1237 West
2300 South. Hampton had recently purchased
the home and had moved some furniture and
household items into it. She discovered the
horrific event when she brought friends to visit
the house. The Telegram described the extent
of the damage: “Every window in the dwelling
was smashed, sashes were knocked out, doors
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 43
were torn from hinges, panels kicked out, elec-
tric light fixtures and wiring was torn up, floor-
ing was ripped up, and dishes smashed.” Garage
doors, windows, and awnings were also ruined;
in addition, Hampton’s rabbit hutches were
found in a nearby canal. Investigators found a
note penciled on one of the inside walls declar-
ing the racial motivation for the crime: “If col-
ored people live here, we’ll strike again—The
Black Bart gang.”27 Presumably, the vandals had
taken the name “Black Bart gang” from a recent
Universal Studios about a notorious cowboy
1
robber. Despite the utter destruction of Hamp-
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ton’s home, Smith and Middleton were only
charged with second-degree burglary for steal-
ing a radio from Hampton’s house.28 Both men
I
eventually pled guilty to theft, and the youths
8 8
were referred to juvenile court.29 The only pun-
V O L .
ishment Smith and Middleton received was
probation, and the newspapers made no men-
tion of Hampton getting any kind of compensa-
I
tion for the loss of her house and possessions.30
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The year 1950 saw the end of the Hamptons’
ownership of the J. H. Hotel after a raid by
the anti-vice police squad. On Tuesday, July
11, Hampton was arrested as a “disorderly per- 43
son,” which could indicate a range of offenses.
The following day, she pled guilty in the city
court; Hampton remained in jail as of Thurs-
day, July 13, because she had not yet paid the
fine of seventy-five dollars and therefore faced
spending fifteen days in jail. (Note that this
punishment was far worse than what the two
white men, Smith and Middleton, received for
destroying her home two years earlier.) With
Hampton in jail and away from the hotel, very
early Thursday morning, the police responded
to a “complaint by a tenant that someone was
in his room and wouldn’t let him retire.” The
police arrested nine unregistered men at the
hotel and charged them with vagrancy and
trespassing; several were also charged with
drunkenness. The “transients” (as they were
called in the newspaper article), who ranged
in age from twenty to forty, appeared in court
and were given a ten-day suspended sentence if
they left the city immediately. Those who were
charged with drunkenness were ordered to pay
a ten-dollar fine as well. Moreover, the police
also arrested a housekeeper, Mrs. Lee Arnett,
as a “disorderly person,” as well as one Alfred
Clarence Smart, with the same charge. Smart
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 was heavily fined, and Arnett was given a six
month jail sentence to be suspended if she left
the city.31
Although the newspaper articles do not make
it clear the specific “disorderly” actions of
Hampton that led to her arrest, it seems clear
that the police were cracking down on the ho-
tel, and the courts wanted to expel many of
its visitors (registered or unregistered) from
the city. This would be one of several African
American hotels in the city that were labeled
1
as dens of “vice” that must be eradicated. Sev-
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eral days after the raid, the Salt Lake Telegram
reported that the “Salt Lake City commission
Wednesday revoked the rooming house license
I
issued to Ida Hampton for the J and H Hotel,
8 8
250 S. West Temple. The license was recalled
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on recommendation of Salt Lake police offi-
cials.”32 After leaving the hotel business, Hamp-
ton lived for two more years in Salt Lake City,
dying at age sixty-four on December 20, 1952.
I
She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery, as
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her husband had been.33 Ida Hampton’s expe-
rience as the subject of both a gang attack and
an anti-vice raid—as well as the uneven justice
44 administered in those events—shows some of
the difficulties a black woman could face in
mid-century Salt Lake City.
New to the 1951 edition of the Green Book was
the Hotel Sam Sneed (or Sam Sneed Hotel) at
250 West South Temple, the same property,
with a new name and now managed by Charles
V. Sneed.34 Sam Sneed, formerly of Wichita,
Kansas, might have been the hotel’s namesake
and also the headwaiter at the blatantly racist
Coon Chicken Inn on Highland Drive in Salt
Lake City in the 1940s. This restaurant, which
closed in 1957, catered to white customers and
relied on many African American stereotypes,
including a crude, twelve-foot-high carica-
ture of a black face that customers had to walk
through the enter the establishment.35
By the 1954 edition of the Green Book, the Jen-
kins Hotel had joined the Utah listings with
its location as 250 South West Temple, which
means it had replaced the Sam Sneed Hotel
(which, in turn, had replaced the New Hotel
J. H.). Like the Sneeds, the new owners, Roy
and Mary Jenkins, apparently had Kansas
roots; they owned several properties in that
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state, including two apartment buildings and
a “recreation center.”36 In the late 1950s, the
Jenkins Hotel changed hands, with Bertha and
Wardel L. Sanders as the proprietors of the ho-
tel.37 The Jenkins Hotel was ready to be turned
over to new proprietors in late 1960; adver-
tisements proclaimed that the hotel, with its
twenty rentable units, was available for lease.38
Charles Tamplin was listed in the Polk directo-
ry as manager of the Jenkins Hotel in 1961; one
year later, it no longer appeared in the direc-
tory.39 Today, a parking lot stands in its place.40
This establishment, one of the few in Utah
available to African Americans, remained open
for at least two decades but dealt with much
turnover and was targeted by the local police.
It seems safe to say, based on the career of the
hotel at 250 South West Temple, that African
Americans traveling to Salt Lake City or at-
tempting to run a hotel there did not have the
easiest of roads ahead of them.
The Hotel Astoria
The other lodgings in the city listed by the
Green Book carried with them some of the
same difficulties as the New Hotel J. H. and its
successors. The 1948 edition of the Green Book
had expanded to include three more entries,
the first two of which were the Astoria and
the Hotel Astoria (very likely the same place),
an establishment located at 528 1/2 West 200
South.41 The Hotel Astoria was advertised in
the Salt Lake Telegram as “the West’s Best Col-
ored Hotel,” with rooms at $1.25 a night or six
dollars a week and up.42 The half address proba-
bly indicates that the Astoria had a back or side
entrance, which suggests that the hotel might
have offered accommodations to both African
American and white patrons, with whites using
the front door and people of color required to
use a side or back door.43 Or it may suggest that
there was a café in the front of the hotel, with
the half address indicating a side entrance for
all patrons.
Newspaper accounts give a glimpse into the
early history of this hotel, and many of the
events that are reported involve violence. Be-
fore the hotel became the Astoria, it had op-
erated for several decades as the Macedonia
Hotel (or Hotel Macedonia). The Macedonia
might also have functioned as a rooming house
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 of sorts, with a clientele of ethnic minority la-
borers.44 Newspaper records further attest to
the association of the hotel and its minority
guests with criminality. In 1917, for instance,
a murder took place at the hotel, alleged-
ly committed by the white manager, Maude
Linker; her husband, Thomas Linker; and an
African American resident, W. H. Brooks. All
three were accused of murdering a wealthy
white rancher, Joseph Briggs, a visitor to Salt
Lake City who reportedly flashed too much
cash when he stopped by the Macedonia.45
The trial of Thomas Linker was complicated
by the death of William Scott, a black porter
living at the Macedonia who was a prime wit-
ness against Linker. Scott died on the eve of
Linker’s trial, but it was later determined he
died from an accidental overdose of morphine.
Linker was then acquitted and the charges
were dropped against his wife and their al-
leged accomplice, Brooks.46
In the 1920s, a number of newspaper accounts
described violent events at the Macedonia
that were either perpetrated or experienced
The Macedonia Hotel as it appeared in a tax assessor photo, circa 1936. Courtesy Salt Lake County Archives, file
1-2359.
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 45
by Latino men, often identified in the reports
as Mexicans. The scholar Khalil Gibran Mu-
hammad has argued that in the early twentieth
century African Americans were associated
with criminality and that whites encouraged
this connection to foster segregation. This ar-
gument can be expanded in a western context
to the association of criminality with other
people of color; articles about the knife fights,
shootings, and robberies at the Macedonia
were quick to mention the ethnicity of the
people involved.47
1
N O .
By March 1928, the Macedonia was up for
auction, and the auction advertisement gives
a good view of its size: “3-story brick Hotel
I
building. . . . Two storerooms on ground floor
8 8
and 44 rooms in balance of building, base-
V O L .
ment, entire building steam heated.”48 The
hotel continued operations and continued to
appear in the news with Latino residents un-
til 1937, when a deportation case entered the
I
news, that of a Mrs. Mary Kelly, “alleged to
U H Q
be a Syrian,” accused of running an operation
involving vice.49 That next year, an anti-vice
45
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 raid by police ended up with charges against
two African American residents (Luella Bass
and Jess Curry), as well as a Margaret Kenne-
dy (who was presumably white because the
newspaper did not identify her race).50 Sordid
accounts of murder and violence at the Mace-
donia (as well as natural deaths) continued
in Salt Lake City newspapers throughout the
late 1930s and early 1940s, further connect-
ing its minority patrons to misfortune and
criminality.51
1
Then, in the mid-1940s, the Macedonia ap-
N O .
pears to have been sold, and its name changed
to the Astoria. A prominent African American
newspaper, the Arkansas State Press, men-
I
tioned that John A. (Doc) Jamieson, who had
8 8
formerly managed the Oasis in Arkansas, was
V O L .
now the manager of the Astoria, “a 45 room
modern hotel, with a private bar and caba-
ret.”52 Jamieson, a World War I veteran and
a member of the NAACP, had enjoyed a re-
I
markable career that included Ivy League
U H Q
degrees and fifteen years as a trainer for the
New York Giants.53 Perhaps in accordance
with his experience, the Hotel Astoria’s new
46 business model incorporated entertainment.
A 1946 advertisement declared the hotel’s re-
cently opened Palm Room to be “Salt Lake’s
Gayest Nite Spot,” with dining, dancing, and
“the Superb Music of the 4 Jays and Their
Aristocratic Rhythms.”54 Another advertise-
ment heralded “the Music of the Aristocrats
of Rhythm, Direct from the Cafe Zanzibar,” a
popular night club in New York City that fea-
tured African American performers.55 And, for
at least a time, a boxer going by Tiger Flowers
offered free instruction every evening in the
public gym of the Astoria, located at “528 W.
2nd South,” for people interested in working
with fight promoters.56 The hotel could also be
the scene of violence: in 1946, the Hotel Asto-
ria was the site of “an alleged knifing brawl,”
during which one Private First Class Roos-
evelt Jent was critically wounded in his abdo-
men and leg.57
The evidence suggests that black travelers did
visit the Astoria. One B. H. Hillard, in a 1952 Ar-
kansas State Press article, described traveling
across the country and pausing for a rest at the
Hotel Astoria, whose “manager was the late Doc
Jamieson of Little Rock.” Hillard wrote that the
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 46
hotel “is very nice for tourist stop overs.”58 Al-
though Hillard mentioned the Astoria in 1952,
the hotel’s fortunes had already changed by
at least 1950. Real estate advertisements from
1948 listed a “high-class colored hotel” avail-
able in Salt Lake City, “doing a fine business”
with forty-four rooms and “a café, bar, dance
floor, billiards parlor and gymnasium,” a de-
scription that fits the Astoria.59 Jamieson him-
self died in November 1950, and the 1951 Green
Book, a special railway edition, reflected a loss
of accommodations for African Americans in
Salt Lake City, with only two overnight options.
Both Astoria entries were dropped from the
1951 issue, and newspaper advertisements for
the hotel had ceased.
The building continued to change hands—and
then to decline—throughout the next two de-
cades. In 1957, the Green Book added a Salt
Lake City listing for the Harlem Hotel at the
site of the former Hotel Astoria; according to
the 1960 Salt Lake City directory, Eliza Perkins
was the proprietor.60 An undated “Economic
or Location Obsolescence” card appears in the
Salt Lake County tax assessor files that states
“owner is trying to fix it up some. It is in low
rent district.”61 The 1964 tax assessor file lists
a hotel, café, and store; the file includes a note
dated 1977 claiming, “Bldg Boarded up.” In ad-
dition, a handwritten note on the original tax
assessment sleeve states, “Bldg has unsafe sign
on door—closed up,” with the instruction “sal-
vage for 1976.”62
The YWCA
Beginning in 1948, one Green Book listing for
Salt Lake City appeared that differed from the
others in both its underlying structure and its
physical location: the Young Women’s Chris-
tian Association (YWCA) residence at 306 East
300 South, which offered lodging to girls and
women.63 The YWCA, originally founded in
the mid-nineteenth century, was established in
Salt Lake City in the early twentieth century. In
addition to providing lodging, the organization
offered “social services, education, and leader-
ship training for women.”64 The organization
as a whole was originally only interested in the
needs of white women and supported segrega-
tion. Only in the 1920s did the YWCA turn its
attention to women of color.”65
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Segregation, however, continued in the YWCA,
even as its members took up a call to challenge
racism in the 1930s.66 A national report about
the YWCA, published in 1943 or 1944, sur-
veyed over six hundred chapters in the U.S.
and looked at the number of African American
members, as well as how many of the activities
offered by the organization were interracial.
Not surprisingly, the results revealed that very
few activities were actually integrated.67 As
a response, in 1946, the YWCA “adopted the
Interracial Charter, marking a major turning
point for the YWCA from a movement tolerant
of segregation within its own ranks, to a genu-
inely interracial movement, seeking to pursue
the cause of racial justice both within its or-
ganisation and throughout the world.”68 It may
have been at this point that the Salt Lake City
YWCA started to offer rooms to African Amer-
ican women, or it might have done so earlier
and notice only reached the Green Book in time
for the 1948 edition.69 Despite the call for inte-
gration, however, the YWCA struggled both to
define and to implement desegregation in the
organization.70
How Salt Lake City’s chapter of the YWCA
engaged with African Americans and racial is-
sues can be glimpsed in occasional newspaper
articles, advertisements, and an interview with
Doris Fry, an African American woman born in
Utah in 1906. Fry recalled that when she was
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 47
1
N O .
I
A dance hosted by the USO and
8 8
YWCA, June 2, 1943. Ray King,
photographer. Utah State Historical
V O L .
Society, photograph no. 9584.
a teenager, she attended several dances at the
I
Salt Lake City YWCA, as well as dances at the
U H Q
African American Masons’ building and hall.71
During World War II, the organization spon-
sored integrated events for soldiers, as well as
United Service Organizations (USO) dances.72 47
The YWCA also supported the opening of a
USO for African American soldiers on 201 East
100 South, despite local residents’ protests.73 In
addition, during the 1940s, the YWCA hosted
meetings of the Association for the Study of
Negro Life and History, a national organization
founded by Carter G. Woodson, a son of former
slaves who earned a doctorate from Harvard
University.74 Lastly, a notice from the 1959 Salt
Lake City YWCA advertises that the Civic and
Society Club was sponsoring “a program to
commemorate Negro History Week.”75
The Salt Lake City YWCA remained in the
Green Book until the end of its publication in
1966. It is unclear how many African Ameri-
can tourists actually stayed there, since women
would not have been able to stay with husbands
or male family members. Of course, African
American women did travel on their own; for
example, France A. Davis, pastor of the Caval-
ry Baptist Church, described how his mother
traveled by train alone from “Georgia to New
York. To Washington D.C. To Florida. . . . Going
to Oregon, going to California. Wherever there
was some relatives of hers, she went to visit.”76
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 Joan Nabors, an African American woman who
taught preschool in Salt Lake City, described
how she went from Illinois to Salt Lake City
via train in 1960, in order to visit her fiancé and
look for a job.77 It is quite possible women such
as these took up residence at the YWCA.
St. Louis Hotel
Also appearing in the 1954 edition of the Green
Book was the St. Louis Hotel at 242 1/2 West
South Temple, which the 1951 Salt Lake City
1
directory listed as “hotel St. Louis café,” with
N O .
proprietors George R. and Mrs. Mary James.78
As France Davis has written, for evening en-
tertainment African Americans could go to ei-
I
ther the St. Louis Hotel or the Hampton Hotel,
8 8
as well as other venues, including Redwood
V O L .
Ranch and Dixieland.79 William Price, an Af-
rican American resident of Salt Lake City and
former employee of the whites-only Hotel
Utah, described how after black musicians had
I
played at white clubs in town, they would of-
U H Q
ten perform at the black clubs by the St. Louis
Hotel: “So if you wanted to see any black en-
tertainer after they got through performing for
48 the white audience, they usually spent some
time after hours at those two clubs and you
A tax assessor photo of the Pacific Hotel, circa 1936. Courtesy Salt Lake County Archives, tax ID 15–01–179–003.
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 48
could go down and see them.”80 The St. Louis
Hotel continued operating into the 1970s; in
1974 the Polk gives its proprietor as Milford
Ordway, and the last notice I have found for the
hotel dates from 1975.81
The Pacific Hotel
In the late 1950s, the Green Book listings in Salt
Lake City expanded to include the Pacific Hotel
on 241 Rio Grande Street. At the start of the de-
cade, the Pacific’s management had advertised
it as a “whites only” hotel.82 That changed in
1957, when an African American couple, La-
Verne C. and Scenora Jenkins, became the ho-
tel’s proprietors. At least on paper, their path
resembled that of other black hoteliers in Utah.
LaVerne was born in Missouri in 1915, had two
years of college education, and, by 1940, was a
waiter with the Union Pacific, living in Ogden.
Scenora was born in Oklahoma and belonged to
the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Only
six years after the Jenkins took on the Pacific
Hotel, Scenora died there of natural causes.83
Despite the Jenkins’ record of personal striv-
ing, the Pacific Hotel was apparently an un-
remarkable establishment (with its six toilets
and six bathtubs) in an economically depressed
3/13/20 12:55 PM

A notice from the Embry Chapel AME Church of its choral music broadcast over radio station KLO. Scenora Jenkins
sits in the front row, at the far right. Ogden Standard-Examiner, May 1, 1949, 8.
neighborhood.84 What is notable is that the Pa-
cific Hotel was one of the few lodgings open to
African Americans visiting Salt Lake City, no
matter who they were.
Salt Lake City Restaurants
For the first time, the 1959 Green Book list-
ed restaurants in Salt Lake City: the Bamboo
Restaurant (755 South State Street), the Ro-
tisserie Inn (323 South Main), and “Horman
Restaurant” (1270 East 2100 South; correctly,
Harman Café). As Jacob Green remembered,
“Harmons was the first restaurant here to open
the door and allow Blacks in freely.”85 The Bam-
boo Restaurant appears in the tax assessor re-
cords on an unidentified and undated sheet as
“755 South State—occupied by a noodle House
Restaurant—It is the result of combining two
old pioneer houses and adding a commercial
front end some space at the rear for storage.”86
Despite the Rotisserie Inn’s closure in 1957, the
hotel and restaurant listings for Utah’s capital
city remained unchanged from the 1959 edition
of the Green Book until the end of its publica-
tion run in 1966.87
Ogden
Whereas the hotel offerings in Salt Lake City
had diminished in the 1951 Green Book, the Utah
listings expanded that year to include a hotel in
the railway city of Ogden: the Royal Hotel at
2522 Wall Street, which continued to be listed
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 49
1
N O .
I
8 8
V O L .
in the travel guide until its last edition, in 1966.
African Americans initially moved to Ogden in
I
the nineteenth century with the growth of the
U H Q
railroad, where they worked in the industries
and services associated with the road. World
War II then saw an influx of more African
Americans working in the armed services and
with defense in general, and many men and 49
women decided to remain in Ogden after the
war ended.88 The growing presence of African
Americans in Ogden was reflected in a cluster
of businesses on the south side of Twenty-Fifth
Street, where “military and railroad personnel
provided a steady and paying clientele for those
businesses.”89 These included the Davis Hotel,
the Royal Hotel, and the Porters’ and Waiters’
Club.
The first accommodation in Ogden open to
all African Americans was the Davis Hotel at
2548 Wall, owned by Leager V. Davis, a Louisi-
ana-born African American woman. Davis and
her husband—Alonzo H. Davis, a dining car chef
for the Union Pacific Railroad—began operat-
ing the building as a lodging house in 1938; by
1939, they had opened a club at that address.90
But in 1939, tragedy also befell the couple. On
September 7, 1939, Alonzo Davis and Oscar
Foster, a shoe-shiner, were fatally shot over a
gambling issue.91 Testimony at the trial stated
that James Floyd, an African American dining
car waiter, entered the basement of the hotel
to confront Davis. Davis told Floyd to leave the
basement, Floyd pulled a gun, and Davis tried
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 to flee, stumbling over Foster. In shooting at Da-
vis, Floyd accidentally shot and killed Foster as
well.92 Floyd was convicted of voluntary man-
slaughter by a jury who recommended the max-
imum penalty, ten years in state prison.”93 The
judge imposed a one to ten year sentence.94
After her husband’s death, Leager Davis filed
a suit against the Union Pacific Railroad for
$4,194, the back salary due to him between 1937
and 1939 after he had been unfairly dismissed
from his position.95 Davis alleged her husband
1
was dismissed after being arrested and put on
N O .
trial for a violent altercation; however, he was
acquitted of all charges.96 More specifically, in
October 1937, Davis was acquitted of the “intent
I
to commit murder” of another African Amer-
8 8
ican man, Jack Wilson, at the Davis hotel the
V O L .
previous March; according to the Ogden Stan-
dard-Examiner, “Davis was accused of shooting
Wilson in the thigh as he entered the hotel with
two city detectives. Davis testified that he had
I
repeatedly requested Wilson to stay away from
U H Q
his place and fired only to frighten him and in
self defense.”97
50 Then, in 1942, the federal government took
over the Davis Hotel and converted it into mil-
itary housing, prompting Davis to buy the Roy-
al Hotel at 2522 Wall Street. The three-story
hotel was originally built in 1914 and, in 1935,
became a hotel serving Basques who worked in
the local sheep industry. Under Davis’s owner-
ship, the hotel catered to an African American
clientele. The hotel basement also provided of-
fice space for black servicemen during WWII
and, in later decades, a meeting place for the
Ogden chapter of the NAACP. The three-sto-
ry building is still in existence and is listed on
the National Register of Historic Places. The
hotel is now a low-incoming housing facility
for those dealing with mental health and sub-
stance abuse challenges.98
Something of the business of the Royal can be
gleaned from interviews with African Ameri-
cans conducted during the 1980s. Alberta West,
an African American woman who moved to Hill
Air Force Base in 1942 from Texas and started
a café in Ogden, described how surprised she
was to see Leager Davis when she arrived in
Ogden in 1942; West had met Davis in Hous-
ton, Texas, over twenty years earlier and knew
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 50
her socially. When asked to describe the Royal
Hotel, West stated that the hotel was “lovely,
real lovely” and that Davis lived on second first
floor in an apartment with “beautiful, beautiful
furniture.” In relating the activities that hap-
pened at the hotel, West elaborated, “She had
a club in the basement, that the American Le-
gion ran it. They had dances down there, and
all kinds of parties . . . [the] second and third
floors were rooms where the Porters stayed
when they came here.” According to West, af-
ter Davis’s husband died, her sister came to live
with her and help out with the hotel; West de-
scribed how Davis would take vacations to see
her family in Texas and Louisiana and would
bring in another woman to assist her sister
while she was gone.99 The interviewer repeat-
edly asked West if Davis had any kind of trouble
running the business as a woman, but West de-
flected the questions, asserting that Davis was a
respectable, savvy businesswoman.
The same oral history project interviewed an-
other important African American woman in
Ogden’s history, AnnaBelle Weakley-Mattson,
of the Porters’ and Waiters’ Club and Hotel.
That business first opened in 1916 as a place
for black railroad employees to rest between
runs. Over time, William Weakley, Weak-
ley-Mattson’s husband, became the man most
associated with the hotel, which was subsi-
dized by the railroads and catered to their
employees. (Perhaps because it of this, the ho-
tel never appeared in the Green Book.) Yet it
was a popular and longstanding institution, in
large part because of the lounge, which Weak-
ley-Mattson ran and which gained a reputation
for hosting famous jazz and blues musicians.
Operating the club and hotel was not without
troubles. Weakley-Mattson recalled how “Mrs.
Davis made a bid for the railway business” in
the late 1940s and early 1950s, which then split
that clientele between the two hotels.100 “Then
there wasn’t that much railroad business as it
was because they had two hotels housing rail-
road crews. Then it made it less likely that you
could profit very much and yet we had an in-
vestment in the hotels there to house the rail-
road crews and also had a contract with these
people.”101 Even worse, Weakley-Mattson also
described how the police would often come
looking to the African American owned busi-
nesses if there was trouble in town and often
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A mid-century postcard advertising El Rancho Provo. Courtesy of the author.
targeted her; for example, in 1952 a police raid
left her with $20,000 in fines, attorney fees,
and other costs.102
As evident in these interviews, both Weak-
ley-Mattson and Leager Davis provided strong
examples of African American entrepreneurs
in the Utah hotel business who were very ac-
tive in local political and social organizations.
Utah and Beyond
In the mid-1950s, Utah’s listings expanded in
the Green Book as well, this time in a southerly
direction. By 1957, the Utah locations includ-
ed accommodations national parks, namely
the Bryce Canyon Lodge (erroneously listed
in “Brigham”) and Zion Lodge at Zion Nation-
al Park, as well as a hotel in Provo, El Rancho
Provo (1015 South State) and the Cedar Crest
Lodge Motel (555 South Main Street) in Ce-
dar City. The Green Book at this point reflected
both the travel and presence of African Amer-
icans along the Wasatch Front, from northern
Utah to the national parks of Zion and Bryce in
the south.103 This raises the complicated ques-
tion of segregation in America’s national parks,
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 51
1
N O .
I
8 8
V O L .
I
U H Q
where practices could differ greatly by each 51
park. In December 1945, the Secretary of the
Interior amended the rules of the National Park
Service (NPS) to prohibit segregation of any
kind within NPS jurisdictions—a rule that was
communicated to NPS concessionaires. How-
ever, full desegregation of all the national parks
would take years. Segregation lingered into the
1950s and 1960s at the Shenandoah and Blue
Ridge national parks, for instance.104
African Americans who drove across the Unit-
ed States in the 1950s could face radically
different experiences of segregation. A 1959 ar-
ticle in the Detroit Free Press entitled “A Negro
Tourist Reports: We Were the Big Attraction,”
described how Ben Holman and two other
travelers took a three-week trip from Chicago
to South Dakota and Wyoming. Holman noted
that in small towns “we were practically a trav-
el hazard at times as motorists risked a collision
to do a double-take.” The men endured much
ignorance; for example, an “old-timer” in Jack-
son Hole, Wyoming, asked if they were baseball
players. But overall, they said, they found peo-
ple quite accommodating. Referring no doubt
to the Green Book or Travelguide, Holman
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 wrote, “We had been prepared to use a guide
which listed places where Negroes could find
accommodations without embarrassment. But
after a few days, we put the guide in the trunk
of the auto and forgot about it.”105 As this arti-
cle suggested, the guidebook was not needed,
for all hotels and restaurants were open and
welcoming to the men. However, because it ap-
peared on the travel page of the newspaper, one
might wonder if Holman’s article was a kind
of advertisement as well, targeted at African
Americans who were wary of traveling to states
1
like Wyoming and South Dakota.106
N O .
Another group of African Americans, travel-
ing through the Southwest in 1955, had a com-
I
pletely different experience, one with tragic
8 8
consequences. A number of hotels turned the
V O L .
travelers away, leading to excessive fatigue and
a fatal car crash: “They could not have found
a welcome at any of the courts from the Texas
border to Albuquerque,” stated Edward L. Boyd
I
of the NAACP. Boyd cited a recent survey in
U H Q
which “less than six per cent of more than 100
hotels and tourist courts on US-66 in the city
were welcoming Negro tourists.” He estimated
52 that about two hundred to four hundred Afri-
can American tourists traveled through the city
every month. Most hotel owners ignored the
city’s antidiscrimination ordinance, so tourists
were forced either to sleep in their cars or to
carry on driving while extremely tired.107
Discrimination in housing and accommo-
dations for African Americans continued in
the 1960s, despite a number of state laws that
banned it. A 1964 editorial in the Santa Fe New
Mexican pointed out an obvious contradic-
tion: “There is no discrimination in public ac-
commodations, we say, although there may be
certain hostelries in the immediate area which
suddenly find they have no vacancies when a
Negro family shows up and asks for a room.”108
To that end, the 1963–1964 edition of the Green
Book contained an introductory page entitled
“Your Rights, Briefly Speaking!” that included
a list of states and their specific laws regarding
discrimination, as well as the office in those
states where travelers could complain to. Utah
was absent from this list.109 Even with the land-
mark Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Green Book
authors felt obliged, in 1966, to discuss “Civil
Rights: Facts vs. Fiction,” including the public
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 52
accommodation rule and a list of thirty-one
states with even stronger protections. As be-
fore, Utah was not part of that list.110
With the passage of the Civil Rights Act, publi-
cations like the Green Book might have seemed
unnecessary, but African Americans tourists in
the West still experienced discrimination. The
memoirist Lauret Savoy described one such
experience from the late 1960s, when she was
seven years old and visiting western national
parks with her parents. Savoy tried to buy post-
cards from a store but was shunned by a white
clerk who refused to even accept the young girl’s
money.111 Although the Green Book ceased pub-
lication in the 1960s, not long after the passing
of civil rights legislation, Savoy’s account is a re-
minder that many tourist sites and organizations
still did not welcome people of color.
gh
During its decades of publication, the Green
Book facilitated African American travel
throughout the United States by helping black
tourists find safe, welcoming places to eat and
rest. As a historical artifact, it provides an op-
portunity to understand how willing the people
of particular locales—in this case, Utah—were
to open their businesses to African Americans.
Unfortunately, according to the record left by
the Green Book, few of Utah’s restaurants and
hotels allowed African Americans to patron-
ize them. Equally unfortunate was the reality
that those establishments and their owners
were often the targets of police raids and ra-
cially motivated violence, thereby reinforcing
the stereotyped association of crime with peo-
ple of color. Despite this, the history of Utah’s
desegregated hotels is a vibrant one, filled with
the appeal that a proprietor like Doc Jamieson
could bring to a hotel or the agency of women
such as Leager Davis and AnnaBelle Weak-
ley-Mattson, who parlayed hotel ownership
into personal success and then into community
progress.
Notes
1 Later editions of the Green Book expanded to be inter-
national in scope. Twenty-one editions of the Green
Book published between 1936 and 1966 are available
online in the New York Public Library Digital Collec-
tions. The guide was published under the name The
Negro Motorist Green Book through 1951; the title then
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 changed to The Negro Travelers’ Green Book (without
and then with a possessive apostrophe) through 1959,
The Travelers’ Green Book through 1961, the Green Book
in 1962, and Travelers’ Green Book through 1966. The
New York Public Library Digital Collections, accessed
March 5, 2019, digitalcollections.nypl.org.
2 “Navigating the Green Book,” New York Public Library, ac-
cessed November 14, 2019, publicdomain.nypl.org/green
book-map/.
3 The Negro Motorist Green Book (New York: Victor H.
Green, 1938), introduction (hereafter Green Book).
4 Leslie Nash, ed., Travelguide: Vacation and Recreation
without Humiliation (New York). The Travelguide
was created by William “Billy” Butler, a musician
and bandleader, who had traveled extensively for his
work. See Cotten Seiler, “‘So That We as a Race Might
Have Something Authentic to Travel By’: African
American Automobility and Cold-War Liberalism,”
American Quarterly 58 (2006): 1091–1117, and Republic
of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in Amer-
ica (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008),
105–128. A number of scholars have discussed African
American “automobility” and travel during segrega-
tion. Paul Gilroy, “Driving While Black,” Car Cultures:
Materializing Culture, ed. Daniel Miller (Oxford: Berg,
2001), 81–104; Mark Foster, “In the Face of Jim Crow:
Prosperous Blacks and Vacations, Travel and Out-
door Leisure, 1890–1945,” Journal of Negro History
84, no. 2 (1999): 130–49; Kathleen Franz, “The Open
Road: Automobility and Racial Uplift in the Interwar
Years,” Technology and the African American Experi-
ence: Needs and Opportunities for Study (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 2006), 131–54; Jennifer Reut, “Travel-
guide: Vacation and Recreation Without Humilia-
tion,” National Trust for Historic Preservation (blog),
February 18, 2019, accessed March 5, 2019, saving
places.org/stories/.
5 Seiler, “So That We as a Race,” 1104.
6 Susan Sessions Rugh, “Selling Sleep: The Rise and Fall
of Utah’s Historic Motels,” Utah in the Twentieth Cen-
tury, ed. Brian Q. Cannon and Jessie L. Embry (Logan:
Utah State University Press, 2009), 73–75.
7 Ray Boren, “Hotel Utah, 100 Years of History,” Deseret
News, June 7, 2011; “Beautiful Hotel Utah Opens Fri-
day,” Salt Lake Tribune, June 3, 1911, 9; Marc Haddock,
“Newhouse Hotel—and Landmark to Explosive End,”
Deseret News, November 9, 2009; “Returned Mission-
ary Surprised at Growth,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 19,
1910, 2.
8 Stephen Sturgeon, “The Disappearance of Everett
Ruess and the Discovery of Utah’s Red Rock Country,”
Utah in the Twentieth Century, 30–31.
9 F. Ross Peterson, “‘Blindside’: Utah on the Eve of
Brown v. Board of Education,” Utah Historical Quar-
terly 73, no. 1 (2005): 6. In 1939, the white realtor
Sheldon Brewster proposed that a ghetto or “special
residential district” be created in Salt Lake City for Af-
rican Americans. The area, he proposed, would stretch
“from Sixth South to Ninth South and Main to Fifth
East.” According to Sheldon, although the 1930 census
only listed 1,108 African Americans in Utah, “an influx
of members of that race is expected soon and that cer-
tain interests are attempting to buy and rent a group of
houses for them.” “Negro Area Plan Draws Protests,”
Salt Lake Telegram, November 2, 1939, 7. For a history
of earlier African Americans in Utah, see Ronald G.
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 53
Coleman’s dissertation, “A History of Blacks in Utah,
1825–1910” (PhD diss., University of Utah, 1980).
10 Bernice Benns, interview with Leslie G. Kelen, June 9,
1983, interview 1, 8, “Interviews with African Ameri-
cans in Utah, 1982–1988,” Ms0453, Special Collections,
J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt
Lake City, Utah, transcript available online, accessed
November 14, 2019, collections.lib.utah.edu/search
?facet_setname_s=uum_iaau.
11 Benns, interview 1, 20–21.
12 Ronald G. Coleman, “Blacks in Utah History: An Un-
known Legacy,” The Peoples of Utah, ed. Helen Z. Papa-
nikolas (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society,
1976), 136; Peterson, “‘Blindside,’” 4–5; Rebecca Ander-
sen, “The Great White Palace: African American Segre-
1
gation in Utah,” Utah Humanities, accessed September
N O .
9, 2019, utahhumanities.org/stories/items/show/228.
13 Peterson, “‘Blindside,’” 9. Based on the collection of
interviews with African Americans living in Utah, I
I
would amend Peterson’s assertion to say that forms
of segregation continued in Utah longer than “an-
8 8
other decade” after 1948. J. Herschel Barnhill, “Civil
Rights in Utah: The Mormon Way,” Black Americans
V O L .
and the Civil Rights Movement in the West, ed. Bruce
A. Glasrud and Cary D. Wintz (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 2019), 125.
14 Helen Davis, “‘Jazz at Philharmonic’ Deals Blow to
I
Race Bias,” Chicago Bee, May 26, 1946, 13.
U H Q
15 Alice Dunnigan, “Human Rights Committee Shows
Racial Bias on Increase in the West,” Kansas City (KS)
Plaindealer, August 30, 1957, 1.
16 “NAACP Scores Mormons for Blocking Bill Salt Lake
City,” Los Angeles Tribune, April 3, 1959, 6, 19; see also,
“Civil Rights Measure Dies in Utah Senate Commit- 53
tee,” (Little Rock) Arkansas State Press, April 10, 1959.
17 Benns, interview 1, 17.
18 Wilfred Bocage, interview by Leslie Kelen, September
7, 1983, 44, “Interviews with African Americans.”
19 “NAACP Press Utah—More Civil Rights,” Daily Utah
Chronicle, November 9, 1964, 1.
20 Khalil Gibran Muhammad, The Condemnation of Black-
ness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban
America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2010), 1.
21 In addition, the Travelguide listed several options for
accommodations not included in the Green Book. See
Rugh, “Selling Sleep,” 73–75. Newspapers do offer
some evidence of African American tourists to Salt
Lake City in the 1930s and 1940s, although they do not
record where the visitors spent the night or dined. For
example, a 1949 article describes how members of the
Washington, D.C. Educational Touring Club visited
Salt Lake City, after which they presented Utah’s gov-
ernor “with a certificate of good will.” As the article
explained, “The club is an organization to promote
good will for colored people.” “Negro Club Pays Call
on Governor,” Ogden Standard-Examiner, August 22,
1949, 7.
22 Green Book, 1940, 45. The New Hotel J. H. was also
known as the “J. H. Hotel” or the “J & H Hotel.” The
1940 Salt Lake City directory included the hotel’s ad-
dress, with no manager or proprietor, and listed Hamp-
ton’s personal address as “Hampton, Jas H. (New Hotel
J. H.) 250 West South Temple.” U.S. City Directories,
1822–1995, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1940, 381, 651, digital
image, accessed November 15, 2019, ancestry.com. For a
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 local advertisement for the hotel, see Salt Lake Tribune,
July 22, 1941, 19.
23 Salt Lake Telegram, March 15, 1941, 28.
24 See, for example, Salt Lake Tribune, August 16, 1943, 15.
According to the 1930 U.S. census, Ida Hampton was
born about 1898 in Kansas and was working as hotel
maid in Salt Lake City; her husband, James Hamp-
ton, was born about 1885 in Tennessee and worked as
chauffeur for a taxicab company. 1930 United States
Federal Census, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah,
page 1A, enumeration district 0060, FHL microfilm
2342155, James H. Hampton, digital image, accessed
November 14, 2019, ancestry.com.
25 U.S. City Directories, 1822–1995, Salt Lake City, Utah,
1946, 683, digital image, November 15, 2019, ancestry
1
.com. According to his death certificate, James Hamp-
N O .
ton died in Salt Lake City on May 20, 1945, from coro-
nary thrombosis. He was born in 1871 and is buried in
the Mount Olivet Cemetery. Utah, Death and Military
I
Death Certificates, 1904–1961, s.v. “James Hampton,”
Certificate of Death, May 20, 1945, digital image, ac-
8 8
cessed November 14, 2019, ancestry.com.
26 Various Salt Lake City newspaper notices from the
V O L .
1940s document the J. H. Hotel. See, “Trio Returned
to Denver,” Salt Lake Telegram, November 13, 1941, 7;
“Storage Room Fire in S.L. Hotel Causes $500 Loss,”
Salt Lake Telegram, September 15, 1948, 19; “Transient
I
Booked on Arson Count,” Salt Lake Tribune, September
U H Q
16, 1948, 22.
27 “Two Alleged Leaders of Juvenile Vandal Gang Held,”
Salt Lake Telegram, March 22, 1948, 17.
28 “Court Arraigns Gang Suspects,” Salt Lake Telegram,
March 23, 1948, 15; “2 Men Bound over on Burglary
54 Count,” Salt Lake Telegram, April 6, 1948, 17.
29 “Theft Sentencing Set for May,” Salt Lake Telegram,
April 19, 1948, 17.
30 “Vandal on Probation,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 23, 1948,
10B.
31 “Police Arrest 12 at Hotel,” Salt Lake Telegram, July 13,
1950, 14.
32 “Revoke Rooms Permit,” Salt Lake Telegram, July 20,
1950, 10.
33 U.S. City Directories, 1822–1995, Salt Lake City, Utah,
1951, 422, and 1952, 407, digital image, accessed No-
vember 15, 2019, ancestry.com. According to her death
certificate, Ida Kathleen Fitzpatrick Hampton was
born in December 1887 in Topeka, Kansas. Her death
certificate lists her father as “Ahab J. Fetzpatrick”
from Alabama and her mother as “Mary E. Nettles,”
birthplace unknown. Utah, Death and Military Death
Certificates, 1904–1961, s.v. “Ida Kathleene Hampton,”
digital image, accessed November 15, 2019, ancestry.
com. According to the 1920 U.S. Census, Ida Hampton’s
father, Ahab Fetzpatrick, was living with Ida’s sister,
Sheva Abbott, in Ogden on Grant Street and working as
a carpenter. They later moved to Los Angeles, Califor-
nia. 1920 United States Federal Census, Ogden, Weber
County, Utah, roll T625_1869, page 14B, enumeration
district 152, Ahab Fetzpatrick, digital image, accessed
November 15, 2019, ancestry.com.
34 Charles Sneed’s wife is listed as Nora F. Sneed. U.S. City
Directories, 1822–1995, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1952, 483,
digital image, accessed November 15, 2019, ancestry
.com.
35 “Timely Topics,” Wichita Post-Observer, July 24, 1953,
4; France A. Davis, “Utah in the 40s: An African Ameri-
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 54
can Perspective,” Beehive History 25 (1999): 27, ac-
cessed March 5, 2019, collections.lib.utah.edu/details
?id=419944.
36 “Mrs. Roy Jenkins, 1309 Van Buren St, will leave To-
peka, Monday, August 17, to rejoin her husband, Roy
Jenkins, in Salt Lake City, Utah, where the Jenkins’
now make their home.” “Social and Personal,” Kansas
Whip (published as Kansas American), August 14, 1953,
6; see also, “Recreation Center Moves to 118 East 4th,”
February 4, 1955, 4, and “Social and Personal,” Kansas
Whip, April 1, 1955.
37 U.S. City Directories, 1822–1995, Salt Lake City, Utah,
1959, 568, 992, and 1960, 596, 1039, digital images, ac-
cessed November 18, 2019, ancestry.com.
38 See, for example, the advertisement in “Business Op-
portunities,” Salt Lake Tribune, November 18, 1960, C11.
39 Polk Salt Lake City Directory (Salt Lake City: R. L. Polk),
1960, 596, and 1961, 572.
40 The earlier tax records for this hotel and property are
not in the Salt Lake County archives, either in the tax
ledgers or the dead tax records.
41 The 1948 Green Book listed the Astoria between 400 and
500 West and a Hotel Astoria at 200 South. The specific
street address of the Hotel Astoria is given in 1949 the
Green Book as 528 1/2 West 200 South, a location that fits
both of the 1948 listings. Since I have been unable to un-
cover any information about the other Astoria, I assume
that this may be a case in which the two listings in the
Green Book refer to the same establishment. The specific
street address is given in the1949 Green Book; the 1948 edi-
tion only lists 2nd South as the address. Green Book, 1948,
76, 1949, 70; see also Sanborn Map Company, Salt Lake
City, Salt Lake County, Utah, 1950 (New York: Sanborn,
1950), sheet 121, accessed November 1, 2019, collections
.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6000cfw.
42 The Hotel Astoria advertised for six dollars per week
“and up” in the paper. Salt Lake Telegram, August 19,
1946, 11, November 30, 1946, 11.
43 My thanks to the Salt Lake County archivists for their
help, especially to archivist Daniel Cureton.
44 See Paul Groth, Living Downtown: The History of Resi-
dential Hotels in the United States (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1994).
45 “Man and Wife Held in Murder Mystery,” Salt Lake
Herald-Republican, May 25, 1919, 13; “Former Ogden
Man and Wife Held for Murder,” Ogden Daily Standard,
May 26, 1919, 5.
46 “Witness for State Dies on Eve of Trial,” Salt Lake Tri-
bune, June 17, 1919, 24; “State Chemist Will Analyze
Scott Medicine,” Salt Lake Herald-Republican, July 11,
1919, 12; the article states that Scott had an overdose of
morphine in his stomach, but formaldehyde from the
embalming process interfered with the results.
47 “Knife Is Used in Fight over Woman,” Salt Lake Tele-
gram, September 9, 1922, 7; “Mexican Uses Knife on In-
tended Victim,” Salt Lake Tribune, November 26, 1919,
24; “S. L. Policeman Shoots down Alleged Thief,” Salt
Lake Telegram, September 3, 1925, 1, 9; “Man Charged
with Slashing Hotel Guest,” Salt Lake Telegram, No-
vember 4, 1927, 2.
48 Auction notice, Salt Lake Telegram, March 2, 1928, 24.
49 “Vice Charges Made in Deportation Case,” Salt Lake
Telegram, March 4, 1937, 15 (qtn.); see also, “Laborer
Drops Dead in S. L. Hotel Room,” Salt Lake Telegram,
January 19, 1929, 2; “Police See No Fun In Breaking
Down Doors,” Salt Lake Telegram, November 1, 1930;
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 “Deportation Looms for Young Mexican,” Salt Lake
Telegram, March 18, 1932, 21.
50 “Police Jail Three in Antivice Raid,” Salt Lake Tele-
gram, February 9, 1938.
51 “Man Charged with Murder,” Salt Lake Telegram, De-
cember 12, 1938; “Jail Sentence Imposed on Liquor Sale
Charge,” Salt Lake Telegram, April 28, 1939; “Battery
Suspect Ordered to Find New Room,” Salt Lake Tele-
gram, January 31, 1942; “Fall Death in Hotel Declared
Accidental,” Salt Lake Telegram, April 4, 1944; “Obitu-
aries: Herbert L. Noble,” Salt Lake Telegram, December
23, 1940.
52 (Little Rock) Arkansas State Press, June 21, 1946, 8.
53 “John A. Jamieson,” Salt Lake Tribune, November 19,
1950, 23; U.S., Headstone Applications for Military Vet-
erans, 1925–1963, s.v. “John A. Jamieson,” digital image,
accessed November 1, 2019, ancestry.com.
54 Salt Lake Telegram, January 5, 1946, 5.
55 Salt Lake Tribune, January 26, 1946, 6; John Wriggle,
Blue Rhythm Fantasy: Big Band Jazz Arranging in the
Swing Era (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016),
chap. 3.
56 Salt Lake Telegram, June 24, 1948, 30. This trainer
was perhaps “Young Tiger Flowers,” who appeared in
World War II–era fights.
57 “Bulletin,” Salt Lake Tribune, June 4, 1946, 9; see also
“Suspect Held in S. L. Knifing,” Ogden Standard Exam-
iner, June 5, 1946, 5. The newspaper states that Roos-
evelt Jent was twenty-three years old; from Fort Lewis,
Washington; and being cared for at Fort Douglas.
58 B. H. Hillard, “Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City,” (Lit-
tle Rock) Arkansas State Press, May 30, 1952, 7.
59 Salt Lake Telegram, July 5, 1948, 18.
60 U.S. City Directories, 1822–1995, Salt Lake City, Utah,
1960, 499, digital image, accessed November 15, 2019,
ancestry.com.
61 Economic or location obsolescence card, tax asses-
sor file, 528 West 200 South, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake
County Archives, West Valley City, Utah (SLCA).
62 Tax assessor file, tax ID 15-01-108-014, ID 1801170701,
SLCA.
63 Green Book, 1948, 76. The boarding house was at 306
East 300 South; the YWCA clubhouse address was 322
East 300 South. See, for example, “Daily Calendar of
Events,” Salt Lake Tribune, April 11, 1939, 8.
64 Nancy Marie Robertson, Christian Sisterhood, Race Re-
lations, and the YWCA, 1906–46 (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 2010), 3.
65 “History,” YWCA, accessed November 19, 2019, ywca.org
/about/history/.
66 Helen Laville, “‘If the Time Is Not Ripe, Then It Is
Your Job to Ripen the Time!’ The Transformation of
the YWCA in the USA from Segregated Association to
Interracial Organization, 1930–1965,” Women’s History
Review 15 (2006): 359–83.
67 Robertson, Christian Sisterhood, 160.
68 Laville, “‘If the Time Is Not Ripe,’” 370; see also Robert-
son, Christian Sisterhood, 162–69.
69 I have not yet been able to track down when the Salt
Lake City YWCA began to offer overnight accommoda-
tions to African American guests.
70 Robertson, Christian Sisterhood, 167; Laville, “‘If the
Time Is Not Ripe,’” 372. According to the YWCA, “In
the 1940s and 1950s, YWCA pushed to integrate racial-
ly segregated housing at associations across the U.S.”
See the entry for “1955” at ywca.org/about/history/.
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 55
71 Doris Fry, interview with Leslie Kelen, March 31, 1984,
6, “Interviews with African Americans.”
72 Susan Whitney, “History of YWCA Comes to Life at
Exhibit of 100 Salt Lake Photos,” March 24, 2006, ac-
cessed March 5, 2019, deseretnews.com.
73 “Site Picked for Negro USO Center,” Salt Lake Tribune,
June 10, 1944, 17; see also Salt Lake Telegram, May 17,
1944, 11.
74 “Meeting Held,” Salt Lake Telegram, February 14, 1940,
19.
75 “Negroes to Note History Week,” Salt Lake Tribune,
February 14, 1959, 10.
76 France Davis, interview with Leslie Kelen, March 31,
1984, interview 2, 2, “Interviews with African Ameri-
cans.”
1
77 Joan Nabors, interview with Leslie Kelen, December
N O .
30, 1987, 16, “Interviews with African Americans.”
78 Green Book, 1954, 66; U.S. City Directories, 1822–1995,
Salt Lake City, Utah, 1952, 491, digital image, accessed
I
November 27, 2019, ancestry.com. By the time of its list-
ing in the Green Book, the St. Louis Hotel and café had
8 8
been in existence for well over a decade; it originally
appeared in the 1936 city directory as the St. Louis Ho-
V O L .
tel, with proprietor George R. James, at 23 South West
Temple; by the 1939 directory, the café is listed as 242
West South Temple with a hotel as 242 1/2. U.S. City
Directories, 1822–1995, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1936, 693;
I
1939, 761, digital images, accessed December 16, 2019,
U H Q
ancestry.com. The 1940 city directory lists several ho-
tels clustered on this block of South Temple, including
the Columbus Hotel (254 W.), the “New Hotel J H”
(250 W.), the St. Louis Hotel (242 1/2 W.), and the New
Lindsay Hotel (240 W.). U.S. City Directories, 1822–1995,
Salt Lake City, Utah, 1940, 1125, digital image, accessed 55
December 16, 2019, ancestry.com.
79 Davis, “Utah in the 40s,” 27.
80 William Price, interview with Karen Lyman, 1982, in-
terview 1, 11, “Interviews with African Americans.”
81 The 1972 Polk directory lists George R. James as propri-
etor of the St. Louis Hotel. The 1974 Polk gives Milford
Ordway as the proprietor. Note that the St. Louis Hotel
is not listed in the 1976 Polk city directory. U.S. City Di-
rectories, 1822–1995, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1972, 695; Polk
Salt Lake City Directory (Salt Lake City: R. L. Polk), 1974;
see also, Salt Lake Tribune, February 10, 1975, 31.
82 Green Book, 1959, 67; Salt Lake Tribune, October 27,
1952, 28; U.S. City Directories, 1822–1995, Salt Lake City,
Utah, 1960, 895, digital image, accessed November 27,
2019, ancestry.com. The 1960 Salt Lake City directory
lists proprietors LaVern C. and Mrs. Senora Jenkins;
note that these Jenkins are not to be confused with the
proprietors of the Jenkins Hotel. The Rio Grande Ho-
tel building is listed in the tax accessor records as built
in 1911.
83 U.S. City Directories, 1822–1995, Ogden, Utah, 1956, 305,
and Salt Lake City, Utah, 1957, 558, digital images; U.S.
WWII Draft Cards Young Men, 1940–1947, s.v. “Laverne
Charles Jenkins”; and 1940 United States Federal Census,
Ogden, Weber County, Utah, Year: 1940; Census Place:
Ogden, Weber, Utah, roll m-t0627-04222, page 15A, enu-
meration district 29–17, Laverne Jenkins, digital image,
all accessed November 15, 2019, ancestry.com.
84 Tax assessor file, tax ID 15-01-179-003, 1938, 1958, 1978,
SLCA; Polk Salt Lake City Directory (Salt Lake City: R.
L. Polk), 1958, p. 797; Provo (UT) Daily Herald, April 12,
1963, 4, and June 21, 1963, 4.
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 85 Green Book, 1959, 67; Jacob Green, interview with Les-
lie Kelen, April 23, 1984, interview 1, 17, “Interviews
with African Americans.” Green also mentioned the
Lunt motel (at 500 East and 400 South) as the only one
he remembered allowing African Americans. Note that
the 1972 Polk city directory lists Mrs. Louse P. Creger
as manager of Harman Café.
86 Tax assessor file, tax ID 16-07-105-003, SLCA.
87 “Death Takes Cesare Rinetti, 88,” Salt Lake Tribune,
July 20, 1971, 26.
88 Eric Stene, “The African-American Community of Og-
den, Utah: 1910–1950” (M.A. thesis, Utah State Universi-
ty, 1994), accessed September 17, 2019, digitalcommons
.usu.edu/etd/4526/.
89 France Davis, “Utah in the 40s,” 26.
1
90 Richard C. Roberts and Richard W. Sadler, A History of
N O .
Weber County (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical So-
ciety and Weber County Commission, 1997), 398; Polk
Ogden City Directory (New York: R. L. Polk), 1936–1939;
I
1940 United States Federal Census, Ogden, Weber Coun-
ty, Utah, roll m-t0627-04222, enumeration district 29–17,
8 8
page 12B, digital image, Leager V. Davis, accessed De-
cember 2, 2019, ancestry.com. The 1950 Sanborn map in-
V O L .
dicates that this building, in combination with no. 2546,
contained twenty apartments. Sanborn Map Company,
Ogden, Weber County, Utah, 1950 (New York: Sanborn,
1950), sheet 049, accessed March 5, 2019, collections.lib
I
.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6fx7ms8.
U H Q
91 “Floyd Facing First Degree Murder Charge,” Ogden
Standard-Examiner, September 12, 1939, 7; “Ogden
Waiter Held in Double Slaying” Salt Lake Tribune, Sep-
tember 8, 1939, 14; “Nine Persons Held as Police Gather
Evidence Regarding Death Cases,” Ogden Standard-
56 Examiner, September 11, 1939, 12.
92 “Court Opens Death Trial,” Ogden Standard-Examiner,
September 26, 1939, 2A.
93 “Ogden Slayer Convicted of Manslaughter,” Salt Lake
Tribune, January 19, 1940, 8.
94 “Waiter Facing Term in Prison,” Ogden Standard-Ex-
aminer, January 22, 1940, 2.
95 “Pay Due Husband, Wife Alleges in U.P. Suit,” Ogden
Standard-Examiner, June 9, 1940, 13A.
96 “Widow Starts Damage Suit,” Ogden Standard-Examin-
er, April 27, 1940, 8.
97 “Jury Acquits Accused Negro,” Ogden Standard-Exam-
iner, October 28, 1937, 3. I have not been able to dis-
cover how the suit against the Union Pacific Railroad
was settled.
98 Roberts and Sadler, A History of Weber County, 398;
Miriam Murphy, “Royal Hotel Served Basques and
African Americans,” Beehive History, October 1996,
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 56
accessed December 2, 2019, issuu.com/utah10/docs;
Mitch Shaw, “Evictee of Low-Income Housing for
Mentally Ill Says Its Rules Are Unreasonable,” Ogden
Standard-Examiner, January 27, 2016.
99 Alberta West, interview with Leslie Kelen, May 15, 1984,
24 (qtn.), 40–41, “Interviews with African Americans.”
100 AnnaBelle Mattson, interview with Leslie Kelen, Octo-
ber 21, 1983, part 1, 14, “Interviews with African Ameri-
cans”; see also Stene, “African-American Community
of Ogden,” 17–20.
101 Mattson, interview, part 1, 14–15.
102 Mattson, interview, part 1, 21.
103 Green Book, 1957, 65, 1959, 67. Other national parks
were listed for the first time in the 1957 edition, includ-
ing Crater Lake in Oregon and Yellowstone in Wyo-
ming. The 1959 edition of the Green Book corrected the
location of Bryce Canyon National Park.
104 Title 36—Parks and Forests, Federal Register, Decem-
ber 8, 1945, 10, no. 240, 14866, accessed December 4,
2019, govinfo.gov/app/collection/fr/1945/12/08; Reed
Engle, “Laboratory for Change,” Resource Management
Newsletter (January 1996), available online at “Seg-
regation and Desegregation at Shenandoah National
Park,” National Park Service, accessed March 5, 2019,
nps.gov/articles/segregation-and-desegregation-at
-shenandoah.htm; Susan Shumaker, “Untold Stories
from America’s National Parks: Segregation in the
National Parks,” The National Parks: America’s Best
Idea, accessed March 5, 2019, pbs.org/nationalparks
/about/untold-stories/. I have been unable to discover
if there were segregated overnight accommodations
and camping sites at Zion or Bryce prior to 1957, and
I plan to continue researching this for another project.
105 Ben Holman, “A Negro Tourist Reports: We Were the
Big Attraction,” Detroit Free Press, June 28, 1959, B7.
106 Holman, “A Negro Tourist Reports.” Susan Sessions
Rugh records how, ten years earlier in Cheyenne, Wyo-
ming, “Reverend Raymond Calhoun, his wife, and their
two infant children were denied accommodations at
eight different places.” Rugh, “Are We There Yet?” 75.
107 “Motels Not Open to Negro Tourists Says NAACP
Man,” Albuquerque (NM) Journal, August 16, 1955, 1–2.
108 “No Segregation?” Santa Fe New Mexican, June 3, 1964,
4. For a similar account of housing discrimination, see
Nabors, interview, 23.
109 Green Book, 1964, 2–4.
110 Green Book, 1966, 2.
111 Lauret Savoy, Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the
American Landscape (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint,
2015), 15.
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57

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 Private Visions: Outsider Art
on Utah’s Cultural Landscape
1
N O .

BY R O G E R R O P E R
I
8 8
V O L .

Some of Utah’s most captivating historical constructions are the artistic

installations that have been labeled outsider art. This article highlights
seven examples of Utah’s outsider art over the past 130-plus years, ar-
I

ranged roughly in chronological order. They include the following: “The

U H Q

Old Curiosity Shop or Crazy House” in Salt Lake City; the “King World
Inscription” near Moab; Van’s Hall in Delta; Gilgal Garden in Salt Lake
City; the Bottle House in Teasdale; Pizy Alldredge’s yard art in Oak City,
Millard County; and Ralphael’s Church/School in Salt Lake City.
58
The term outsider art was coined in the early 1970s and refers to the
large-scale artistic creations of individuals working outside the realm of
traditional art—and even traditional construction.1 Many cultures from
around the world have produced significant examples of outsider art and
scholars have used a number of terms to describe the artistic works of
the craftspeople, artisans, and visionaries who have followed their own
private muses to generate unique cultural environments. These terms
include marginal art, naïve art, rural folk art, self-taught art, primitivism,
vernacular and popular urban art, art of the mentally deranged, Art Brut,
and visionary art environments.2

Regardless of the labels assigned to these works and regardless of their

wide variety and individualized nature, they share a number of common
characteristics. Their creators were usually manual workers who em-
barked on their artistic careers after retirement. They were mostly men,
oftentimes widowers, although there were some women and even a few
couples. The artists generally used salvaged or recycled materials such
as broken crockery, glass, beads, metal, or broken equipment. Concrete
and stucco were especially favored materials because of their malleabil-
ity, strength, and low cost. Most outsider art is located outdoors, usually
on the artist’s property. A good number of the creators took many years,
sometimes decades, to complete their works. They commonly employed
themes of religion and patriotism, God and country, as well as tributes to
honorable labor: farming, lumbering, the building trades, pioneering and
settlement, and the hard work of common folks. Artists’ works were of-
ten unpopular with their neighbors and sometimes prompted questions

UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 58 3/13/20 12:55 PM

 about the artists’ mental stability. Some artists
combined words with images. Animal images
were often a part of outsider art installations.
The projects often became an obsession,
compelling their creators to continue against
daunting odds. The following are some of the
noted outsider art installations in Utah.
“The Old Curiosity Shop” or
“Crazy House,” Salt Lake City
Swedish immigrant Anders John Miller created
two elaborately festooned houses on the “Tenth
Ward Bench,” an eastside Salt Lake City neigh-
borhood, between about 1880 and his death in
1913.3 Miller was born in 1837, converted to the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in
his native land, and probably came to Utah in
the late 1870s.4 He first appears in the 1879–
1880 city directory, which lists his occupation
as “painter” and his residence as the north side
of Third South between Eighth East and Ninth
East (later referred to over the years more pre-
cisely and variously as 273 and 277 South 800
East and 803 East Third South). The 1885 city
directory lists his occupation intriguingly as
Anders Miller residence in the Salt Lake City Tenth Ward, as the neighborhood was called. C. R. Savage,
photographer. Utah State Historical Society, photo no. 8680.
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 59
“toy manufacturer,” but thereafter he is consis-
tently referred to as a whitewasher or “kalsom-
iner.” That was the trade he was best known for
in the city for almost a quarter century.
The “Gentleman Whitewasher,” as some called
Miller, was a well-known character throughout
the city, recognized for his distinctive dress as
much as for his considerable skill in his profes-
sion. He reportedly dressed every day in a white
shirt, black tie, swallowtail coat, black trousers,
and white fabric gloves. In addition, Miller of-
1
ten tied a white apron around his waist. A con-
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cern about riding on streetcars caused him to
walk everywhere, carrying his long-handled
brushes and large bucket.5
I
8 8
Miller was also generally regarded as being of
an unsound mind and “suffering with chron-
V O L .
ic religious mania.”6 Although he was consid-
ered “harmless and even a great favorite among
children,” he was not without critics.7 In 1904,
I
some of Miller’s neighbors feared that his “cra-
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zy” preaching would corrupt their children,
even though he rebutted that he was reciting
the Swedish alphabet to them. The ensuing
investigation by the authorities resulted in his 59
3/13/20 12:55 PM
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8 8
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Anders Miller residence. Note the shrine-like installations, bunting, and other decorations. Utah State Historical
Society, photo no. 8681.
60
commitment to the state mental hospital in
Provo.8 Other neighbors soon interceded on
Miller’s behalf, and he was eventually released
and moved back into his rented house on Elev-
enth East.9 Miller’s involuntary commitment to
the state hospital, as well as the language used
to describe him, connect his experience to a
key theme in contemporary and even scholar-
ly discussions of outsider artists: a tendency to
characterize such artists as unwell and eccen-
tric. Some of the latest research, however, by-
passes the preoccupation with an individual’s
perceived instability in an effort to understand
how his or her artwork fulfilled a therapeutic
need—often in response to personal traumas.10
This could have been the case for Anders Miller.
Even before Miller’s stint at the state hospital,
locals referred to him as “Crazy Miller,” and
he was cited in newspaper articles in the early
1900s as an “aged recluse,” “eccentric charac-
ter,” and “unfortunate man.” The “unfortunate”
description is based on two key events. The
first was the death and burial at sea of Miller’s
sweetheart, Olga Hanson, who was coming to
join him in Utah in the early 1880s. The news
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 60
of her death triggered a long-term physical ill-
ness; he eventually recovered but the illness
reportedly threw him into a perpetual state of
mental instability. When he finally recovered,
he began pursuing two obsessions. The first
was what would become a thirty-year vigil of
burning a candle in the window of his small
house to guide Olga, whom he believed would
come find him when the sea gave up its dead.
His second obsession was decorating the out-
side and inside of his homes in the manner
shown in the photographs of the period.11
The adornments on Miller’s homes consisted
largely of bunting—usually red and white, al-
though sometimes blue as well—draped across
the front of the house and property. The black
and white photos that exist of his house do
not, of course, portray the colors, but Miller’s
obituary refers to him as “the man known for
living in a house of many colors.”12 There were
also artificial flowers and wreaths, garlands,
and shrine-like installations featuring framed
paintings, among other objects. Miller draped
the interior walls of his house in bunting and
lace curtains, accented with bunches of dried
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 foliage. A lace spread with a few large wreaths
of artificial flowers always covered the bed, re-
portedly representing his sweetheart’s grave.13
One woman who lived in the neighborhood
recalled that Miller also decorated with clay
birds, fruit, and plants, which he made as a
hobby. Some of the birds he painted in their
natural colors, while others he enlivened with
vivid hues and a profusion of dots. Miller made
hundreds of these birds and gave them away
to visitors, who would come on Sunday eve-
nings—the only time he accepted visitors—to
view the “Old Curiosity Shop.” There were of-
ten twenty-five to fifty people waiting in line to
go through the house.
The second unfortunate event in Miller’s life
was actually the way he died. Whether from
his ever-present candle in the window or some
other source of flame, his adornments caught
fire one day and burned down his house. Miller
survived that first fire. This probably happened
in the mid-1890s, when his address, as listed in
the city directories, changed from 277 South
800 East to 343 South 1100 East.14 The owner
The King World bas relief, near Moab, Utah. Aaron Andrew (as he was known locally) created this sculpture in the
mid-1930s. Today, it is located on the property of the Moab Regional Hospital. Utah State Historic Preservation Office.
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 61
of the Eleventh East house allowed Miller to
move there under the express condition that
he would not decorate the place. But decorat-
ing was an obsession for him, and soon, little by
little, he started draping bunting and lace cur-
tains and placing his clay birds and fruit in the
new house.15
On January 17, 1913, Miller’s coal oil lamp ex-
ploded in this house and set fire to the decora-
tions. Miller, who was seventy-five years old at
the time, managed to escape the burning house
1
but reportedly went back in to rescue his cat.
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He suffered severe burns and died a couple of
weeks later.16 The elaborate environment that he
had created over the years expired with him. His
I
last words reportedly were, “I have waited many
8 8
years, but I will see Olga now pretty soon.”17
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King World Sandstone
Carving, Moab
I
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In 1935, an itinerant man—known various-
ly as Aharron Andeew, Aaron Andrew, An-
drew Aliason, Harlan Andrew, and M.C.F.
61
3/13/20 12:55 PM
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Two undated photographs of Aaron Andrew, who was also called
I
Aharron Andeew, Andrew Aliason, Harlan Andrew, and M.C.F.
8 8
Hhaesuss. Source of original photos unknown. Duplicate copies, Utah
State Historic Preservation Office.
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Hhaesuss—carved a bas relief sculpture into a
large sandstone boulder located about halfway
up a steep, rocky hillside east of Highway 191,
just north of Moab. The long, narrow boulder
62 is approximately twenty-five feet long, four feet
wide, and six feet tall. The carving, which cov-
ers less than half of the boulder’s face, consists
of a man on a horse (though only the head of
each is actually shown) and an enigmatic in-
scription. The man is wearing a Cossack-type
hat and has military-style ornaments on his
collar. The eastern and western hemispheres
are depicted on the two collar ornaments and,
more visibly, on the hat. A sword and what
appears to be a double-barreled shotgun are
over his shoulders. The inscription contains
the date “1935,” “Hhæsuss” (an apparent refer-
ence to Jesus), “America,” the sculptor’s name
(Aharron Andeew), and the phrases “King of
America” and “King World.” The man’s profile
in the sculpture may be Andrew himself.
A 1986 article in a local publication provides
the most descriptive account of Andrew’s time
in Moab, based on the recollections of Lloyd
Parriott, whose family befriended him when
Lloyd was fourteen years old. In the summer
of 1935, Andrew was passing through south-
eastern Utah and decided to stay in Moab for
a while. He became known locally as Aaron
Andrew. A local family, the Parriotts, allowed
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 62
him to set up camp on their property just off
the road at the north end of town with his pack
horses, donkey, and goats, near where he would
carve the sculpture. For the several months An-
drew was in Moab he worked occasionally for
Ruth and Dale Parriott on their ranch. The Par-
riotts thought he came from southern Europe
or Asia Minor, and he spoke with an accent
that might have been Turkish or Armenian.
They recollected that Andrew was “quiet and
unobtrusive and, with the exception of a few
odd habits, never bothered anyone.” He never
revealed much about his background, though at
various times he claimed to have been a former
cavalry officer and to be a German. Little else
was known about him.18
Andrew was known for his personal habits.
Every Sunday morning he would dress himself
in a regalia that was part military, part priestly,
and would parade like a sentry back and forth
in front of his camp with his sword and rifle.
One of the few photographs of Andrew at that
time shows him wearing a large ceremonial
necklace of medals over a long robe or great-
coat, an unusual hat, a long sword at his side,
and what may be a rifle on his back. The medals,
shaped like large coins, featured inscriptions
similar to his sandstone carving: his profile, his
name, his titles, and relief maps of the conti-
nents of the eastern and western hemispheres.
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 His motives and message were unclear except
that he claimed to be the king of America, king
of the world. According to Lloyd Parriott’s ac-
count, the townspeople become increasingly
concerned about Andrew’s strange habits and
militaristic ways and asked him to leave town.
In addition to Parriott’s recollections, a handful
of contemporary newspaper articles describe
the struggles of a man who must be the creator
of the King World bas relief. In November 1935,
Ogden police arrested one Andrew Aliason—a
fifty-eight-year-old Turk who wore a necklace
of medals and called himself “King of Ameri-
ca”—at the request of the city’s residents. The
people writing about this man were quick to
point out the characteristics that signaled his
mental instability. These descriptions also pro-
vide a few clues about Andrew’s past: that he
reportedly had spent some of his childhood in
a Baltimore orphanage and that he had worked
as an artist in Massachusetts until 1925, when
he was reborn as king of the world. Sometime
in the fall of 1935, Andrew asked P. F. McFar-
land of West Weber if he could set up camp on
McFarland’s property. Among the usual de-
scriptions of his clothing, herd, and weapons,
McFarland noted how Andrew was always
carving, sewing, or stamping different materi-
als and how that handiwork was very fine; no-
tably, a shield Andrew carried was embellished
with a man’s head in profile. In December 1935,
Andrew scuffled with the Weber County sher-
iff and was finally judged to be insane and com-
mitted to the Utah State Hospital, where he
died in 1954.19
While Andrew himself apparently lived a life
marked by ostracism and misunderstanding,
his sculpture has remained in very good con-
dition over the years and surprisingly has not
been vandalized much, especially given that it
was in a visible location just off the highway.
Around 2000, it was incorporated into a new
commercial water park at the site, dubbed the
King World Water Park. The park’s promotion-
al brochure noted that the “mysterious King
World carving has baffled archeologists, trea-
sure hunters and residents for generations.” Af-
ter the water park went out of business in 2008,
locals arranged to have the sculpture moved,
apparently to protect it and display it more
prominently. Andrew’s creation is currently
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 63
located in an attractive setting on the western
edge of the Moab Regional Hospital property
(450 West Williams Way), and the artwork of
a seeming outsider has now become a valued
community asset.
Van’s Hall, Delta
The plain exterior of this commercial build-
ing on Delta’s Main Street belies its exotic in-
terior. The elaborate, bejeweled second-floor
dance hall was created by Billy Van de Vanter
1
(known locally as Billy Van) between the late
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1930s and early 1940s. Unlike many works of
outsider art, this is an interior installation. It
is also unusual in that it was part of an overtly
I
commercial venture, a dance hall that Billy Van
8 8
had operated above his auto repair business for
V O L .
a while before deciding to decorate the interior.
Despite those differences, Van’s Hall fits easily
into the tradition of outsider art. Billy Van was
not a trained artist, but he did have a streak of
I
creativity, and he was a skilled craftsman. The
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dance hall interior builds on some of the earlier
embellishments he had installed on the exteri-
or of his Main Street building.
Billy Van was born in 1882 in Kansas City and
63
moved to the fledgling community of Delta
around 1907. He married Elsie Jacob in 1916,
and together they had six children.20 Billy Van
had an inventive mind, skilled hands, and an
entrepreneurial spirit. His outsider-art ten-
dencies first surfaced around 1920 when he
installed life-size figures on top of his one-sto-
ry garage and accompanied them with dia-
logue-like signs on the façade—not your typical
commercial signs. These were patterned after
Mutt and Jeff, popular comic strip characters
at the time. Van eventually removed the rooftop
figures and added a second-story dance hall to
the building. Other promotional pieces includ-
ed a wishing well out front, merry-go-rounds,
an open-air theater, a menagerie, (complete
with monkeys, pigs, and a badger), and life-size
mechanized mannequin sets: one of musicians
who could “play” music and one of animated
baseball players.21
Billy Van began dressing up the dance hall in
the 1930s with thousands of pieces of mirror
and glass; it became his crowning achievement.
The focal point is the large, mirror-surfaced
ball suspended in the middle of the hall and
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64

Three views of the interior of Van’s Hall in Delta, Utah. Note the mirrored ball,
with its miniature replica of the LDS temple in Salt Lake City, as well as the
banner promising “We Dance Next Sat.” Roger Roper, photographer. Courtesy of
the author.

UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 64 3/13/20 12:55 PM

 encircled by a miniature train and an airplane,
which move in opposite directions. The ball is
topped by a replica of the Salt Lake City LDS
Temple. (Van had carved an impressively ac-
curate scale model of the temple with his pen-
knife in earlier years).22 This is one of several
Mormon icons in the dance hall—including An-
gel Moroni heralds in the entrance stairway—a
bit of irony, given that Billy Van was not himself
a Latter-day Saint and the dance hall had a de-
cidedly rowdy reputation. While the imbibing
of alcohol may not have been allowed on the
premises, there were apparently no restric-
tions about allowing imbibers into the dance
hall, unlike the dances sponsored by the LDS
church elsewhere in Millard County. Van’s Hall
had a reputation in the county as a lively and
wild place: “good girls” didn’t tend to go there,
especially if their parents had any say in the
matter.23
Billy Van died in 1942, but the dance hall con-
tinued in operation until the 1960s. The fam-
ily retained ownership until 2006, when they
sold it to a group dedicated to the preservation
and restoration of the dance hall. In the early
Sphinx. With its finely carved face of Joseph Smith Jr. and its use of sphinx symbolism, this sculpture figuratively
links Thomas Child Jr.’s beliefs to antiquity. Roger Roper, photographer. Courtesy of the author.
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 65
1990s, the Delta Historic Preservation Com-
mission, family members, and other residents
of the community took an interest in saving this
unique landmark. They were instrumental in
getting the building listed on the National Reg-
ister of Historic Places in 1995. Subsequently,
they have secured a series of small grants from
the Utah State Historic Preservation Office to
help stabilize the structure and make other
repairs.
Although the dance hall has not been used
1
much since the 1960s, due in large part to
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building code issues, it has remained remark-
ably well preserved. The building is used oc-
casionally for events such as class reunions,
I
special dances, and tours, and some day it may
8 8
once again be an active part of the community.
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Gilgal Garden, Salt Lake City
The most extensive, and perhaps best-known,
I
outsider art installation in Utah is Gilgal Gar-
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den near Trolley Square in Salt Lake City. Gilgal
was the creation of a retired masonry contractor
and former Latter-day Saint bishop, Thomas B.
65
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8 8
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Monument to the Priesthood. The stone arch, the obelisk, and the set of four books pictured here form a monument to
what Child believed were sources of spiritual revelation. Also visible is a replica of a birdhouse Child created in his
66 youth. Roger Roper, photographer. Courtesy of the author.
Child Jr., who was born in 1888 and lived in the
city’s Tenth Ward virtually his entire life. (This
was the same neighborhood Anders Miller lived
in, and their lives overlapped. Child would have
been in his mid-twenties when Miller died, so it
seems likely that he would have visited Miller’s
home, although it doesn’t appear to have been a
direct inspiration for Gilgal.)
Beginning around 1945 and continuing until his
death in 1963, Child created a series of twelve
original sculptures (and more than seventy
features, overall) in the middle-block proper-
ty behind his house at 452 South 800 East.24
Most of these works are devoted to religious
themes, primarily Mormon and biblical (Gil-
gal itself refers to an Old Testament memorial
made of stones), but some are in recognition of
the building trades, which he greatly admired
as well. He even created a living memorial to
his wife, Bertha, who died in 1966. Among the
major works are a stone sphinx with the head
of Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the LDS
church, and the Monument to Trade, which
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 66
features a larger-than-life-size statue of Child
himself wearing brick pants and surrounded by
masonry tools.
Unlike other outsider-art practitioners, Child
was more the architect of his creations than he
was the actual builder. He relied heavily on his
son-in-law Bryant Higgs, his son Tom Child,
Grant Fetzer (one of his neighbors), and a re-
nowned local sculptor, Maurice Brooks, whom
he hired to create the sculptural works. (Brooks
employed a unique technique for sculpting the
stones that involved use of an oxyacetylene
torch.) Child also used other laborers, some
of whom were reportedly ward members on
church welfare. Many of the stones were ex-
tremely large—one weighed in at seventy-eight
tons—and required special equipment both to
be collected and to be set in place. As might be
expected of a retired mason, Child was par-
ticular about the stones he would use. He did
considerable scouting around and had stones
brought in from various canyons along the
Wasatch Front.25
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Monument to Trade. This statue includes a
representation of Child, a retired masonry contractor,
wearing pants made of bricks, and building trade
implements. Roger Roper, photographer. Courtesy of the
author.
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 67
Unlike many outsider artists, Child was very
much a community insider. He was a well-re-
spected masonry contractor who had con-
structed dozens of prominent buildings in the
area, including the Holy Trinity Greek Or-
thodox Church in Salt Lake City, Ogden High
School, the Bushnell Hospital (later known as
the Intermountain Indian School) in Brigham
City, and buildings on the University of Utah
and Brigham Young University campuses. He
served on various boards and committees and
co-directed the Days of ’47 pioneer celebration
1
during its first ten years of existence.26
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Most notable for its direct relationship to Gilgal’s
religious message was Child’s extensive involve-
I
ment in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
8 8
Saints. He served as bishop of the Tenth Ward
V O L .
for nineteen years and as a member of the Park
Stake High Council for eighteen years. His gar-
den, which also abutted the Tenth Ward chapel
property, may have been a private depiction of
I
his religion, but its overall message was entire-
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ly consistent with church teachings. Although
Child operated without the blessing or support
of either his home ward or LDS church head-
quarters, he intended the garden to be an in- 67
structional tool, especially for young people. He
Child stands next to a statue of
himself within the Monument
to Trade at Gilgal Garden in Salt
Lake City. Utah State Historic
Preservation Office.
3/13/20 12:55 PM
 established a sequence of presentation, building
from one topic to another, and would use mu-
sical accompaniment (through a phonograph, a
reed organ, or family members singing hymns)
at certain locations along the tour.27
Some of Child’s neighbors described him as
“nutty” to take on such a project as Gilgal, but
they indulged him perhaps because he was a
long-time community leader.28 Child acknowl-
edged that, “You may think I am a nut, but I
hope I have aroused your thinking and curios-
1
ity.” The Tenth Ward newsletter supported his
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efforts, as indicated in a 1950 article: “Brother
Child has carried his skills as a builder into his
home and yard and has made a hobby of depict-
I
ing scenes and ideas of the scriptures in stone.
8 8
At the present time he is constructing several
V O L .
monuments in stone that deserve state-wide
attention and should be preserved for future
generations.”29
I
Just so, thousands of visitors from Utah, the
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United States, and foreign countries have vis-
ited and enjoyed Gilgal Garden. After Child’s
death, the neighboring Fetzer family owned
68 and maintained the garden, opening it to the
public on Sunday afternoons for many years.
In 2000, after a threat of demolition to make
way for something more profitable and less
vandal-prone, Salt Lake City acquired the
garden from the Fetzer family. It is currently
maintained and operated as a city park under
the care of the Friends of Gilgal Garden. The
garden is identified as a singular feature and
“contributing resource” in the Salt Lake City
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 68
Eastside Historic District that was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 1996.30
Bottle House, Teasdale
In 1925, Tora Selander, a Swedish twen-
ty-something, was traveling alone in southern
Utah. The vistas from Bryce Canyon inspired
her—as they do most visitors—but her vision
was more purposeful than those of the aver-
age tourist. She determined that someday she
would find a home out in that vast landscape.
“That is where I am going when I am ready to
settle down. Somewhere in that country I will
find a permanent camp.”31
It took a while, but in 1956 Selander and her
Connecticut-born husband, John Nelson,
bought the abandoned schoolhouse in Teasdale
and set out to not only rehabilitate the building
but also to create a museum. It would display
their collection of artifacts from around the
world, including an extensive trove of south-
west Native American blankets and other
items. The story of their collecting adventures
was an epic in its own way, but that was only
their first chapter in Teasdale.
Their first museum burned, apparently along
with many of the artifacts, and John died in 1963.
By the early 1960s, however, Tora was working
on a new project: a structure that served as both
house and museum and was built of salvaged
materials, including thousands of beer and selt-
zer bottles collected from the local dump. It took
her ten years, according to her son, Pete Nelson.
The bottle house created by Tora
Selander Nelson in Teasdale, Utah.
Cory Jensen, photographer.
3/13/20 12:55 PM

Tora found logs and dragged them home behind
her car to create the basic structure. The bottles,
laid bottoms-out and set in mud mortar, formed
the infill material for the walls. This homemade
structure became her longtime dwelling and the
repository for her new collection of artifacts.
The bottle walls were an attraction to the local
youth, however, who delighted in shooting at
them. As a result, she ended up covering most of
the walls with wood. Tora Selander Nelson died
in 1988 in Richfield, just short of her ninety-sec-
ond birthday.32
Nelson’s house still stands, abandoned, al-
though sections of the bottle walls are still vis-
ible. It embodies the creative use of found- and
recycled-objects that is common to many out-
sider artists. Layered on top of Nelson’s creativ-
ity was her passion for collecting and sharing
cultural artifacts. In a 1958 Salt Lake Tribune ar-
ticle, she explained herself: “What I am trying
to do here is bring out appreciation of beauty
in cultures not our own, geographical aware-
ness and historical perspective. Together, these
things help one to escape from the too-narrow
personal groove. I can think of no development
more important to the time in which we live.”33
Pizy Alldredge’s Yard Art,
Oak City
Mervyn Jay Alldredge, “Piz” or “Pizy” as he
was known, created a distinctive collection of
figures from common, often discarded, house-
hold and farm implements and materials. A
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 69
Detail of Nelson’s house, showing
1
her construction techniques and
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the make of individual scavenged
glass bottles. Cory Jensen,
photographer.
I
8 8
self-taught welder, he worked many years for
V O L .
the Union Pacific Railroad. Like many other
outsider artists, Pizy didn’t start his creative
endeavors until after his retirement, around
I
1970. Alldredge, who was born in 1910, had also
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worked at farming and tending livestock on the
family homestead in Oak City, Millard County,
and he even worked for a time as a cowboy in
Nevada and California. He served for fifty years
as a weather reporter for the U.S. Weather Bu-
69
reau, for which he received statewide recog-
nition. Alldredge also served as a scoutmaster,
town constable, and as a member of the town
board.34 He was a community insider, but his
artistic creations fit comfortably within the
realm of self-taught outsider art.
Like his father, the town blacksmith, Alldredge
found satisfaction in heating and bending met-
al, although for artistic rather than practical
purposes later in his life. Until his death in
2001, his home in Oak City was surrounded by
his creations. He also made dozens of small-
er, shelf-size figures, but his yard art was the
most visible and demonstrative expression of
his ingenuity. His house was a drive-by attrac-
tion that locals shared with their out-of-town
guests.
Alldredge began welding pieces of scrap metal
together after seeing a resemblance between a
donkey’s head and a discarded combine part.
This hobby of creating folk art from salvaged
materials dominated his thirty-year retire-
ment. His work depicted scenes of frontier
life, ranch work, community dances, storybook
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70

Yard art outside the Oak City home of Mervyn Jay “Pizy” Alldredge, as photographed in 1993. Alldredge was a self-
taught welder who created whimsical sculptures from farm and household materials. Roger Roper, photographer.
Courtesy of the author.

UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 70 3/13/20 12:55 PM

 characters, and life-size human and animal fig-
ures. Alldredge won numerous blue ribbons
at the Millard County Fair over the years, and
the Utah Arts Council exhibited some of his
miniatures in folk art shows in Salt Lake City
and in statewide traveling shows. In 1991, his
work was among a collection of ten artists from
around the country whose works were featured
at the Arts Festival in Atlanta, which drew some
2.5 million visitors.35
After Alldredge’s death in May 2001, his yard art
was removed and distributed among his family
members, who had a great appreciation for it.
A descendent acquired his house soon after his
death, remodeling and upgrading it. Later, that
remodeled house was replaced with an entirely
new one. Still, a remnant Pizy artifact remains in
the yard, as of my latest drive-by sighting.
The exterior of the Church/School created by Ralphael Plescia, on 1324 South State Street in Salt Lake City. Plescia
began this massive work around 1970, after inheriting the building from his father. Roger Roper, photographer.
Courtesy of the author.
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 71
Ralphael’s Church/School,
Salt Lake City
The best-known active outsider art installation
in Utah currently is probably Ralph (Ralphael)
Plescia’s creations in and around his building at
1324 South State Street in Salt Lake City.36 After
Plescia obtained the building from his father
around 1970, he started creating his view of Bib-
lically inspired beliefs—with some significant
interpretive twists—and he has continued that
1
endeavor to the present. Ralphael’s Church/
N O .
School is one of those captivating worlds that
rivals outsider art expressions anywhere in
terms of its personal vision and expression.
I
8 8
A number of recent articles and documenta-
V O L .
ries, most of which are readily available online,
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71
3/13/20 12:56 PM
 delve into the details of Plescia’s beliefs and
the physical expressions of those beliefs that
he has created.37 Plescia himself gives tours of
the place on occasion, providing insights and
explanations along with commentary that is as
organic and intriguing as his creations.38 The
plaque on the front of the building may serve
as the best summary of what this is all about:
“Ralphael’s Church School Dedicated to Teach
about the Heavenly Mother and God, Creator
and Jesus.”
1

The building consists of a three-level laby-

N O .

rinth of rooms jammed with sculptures, writ-

ings, art, and a number of features, materials,
half-finished projects, and stored items that
I

reflect Plescia’s multiple interests and priori-

8 8

ties (including some vintage automobiles). The

V O L .

main floor features a rich array of pieces, the

most captivating of which is the sculpture of a
larger-than-life Eve reaching up for forbidden
fruit from a deep nether-region cutout in the
I

floor with a threatening dragon in pursuit. This

U H Q

emergence of a dynamic sculpture from an un-

expected main-floor void is arresting and diffi-
cult to turn away from. It seems easy to view the
72 basement level as a sort of hell, the main floor
as our world, and the upper floor as heaven. But
nothing in this visually compelling worldview
lends itself to such a convenient interpretation.

Images from the interior of Ralphael’s Church/School that depict Eve trying to escape a dragon, as she reaches for
fruit. Roger Roper, photographer. Courtesy of the author.

UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 72 3/13/20 12:56 PM

 Plescia’s hand-excavated, basement-level cav-
erns and passageways include pools of natu-
ral ground water, limited lighting, be-careful
bridges and steps, and skirting pathways. This
somber and sometimes claustrophobic un-
derworld is filled with figures and references
from the Bible and elsewhere, some readily
decipherable and some not. The upper floors
are decorated with various architectural and
symbolic elements in various degrees of com-
pletion, including a ten-foot high banner of
Christ’s anguished face. These upper spaces
include pop-up skylights that extend above
the roofline, bringing in added, perhaps heav-
enly, illumination. A peaceful rear courtyard
offers an open-air, natural counterpoint to all
of the interior creations, but even this area has
various features that follow some of the same
themes and designs from the inside.
In recent years, Plescia has expressed an interest
in seeing that his work lives on. He would like to
have someone take over the studio after him.39
But he is skeptical. “The reason I don’t think
it will survive is because what I am doing here
is not something you can make money on. I’m
not trying to seek anything other than knowl-
edge. . . . There’s a 98 percent chance that one
day none of this will be here.”40 Others have also
expressed concerns about its long-term fate. Our
office, the State Historic Preservation Office,
and other government and nonprofit cultural
institutions have received numerous inquiries in
recent years about what can be done to preserve
this cultural treasure. Unfortunately, none of us
have the answer. Our programs and funding are
structured in such a way that they don’t easily
accommodate outlier installations such as this.
Such has been the dilemma of many of Utah’s
outsider-art properties over the years. Their
uniqueness often works against them. They are
multifaceted and a bit quirky, not readily suited
to standard solutions. But perhaps through a
coordinated effort and a little creativity we can
find a way to embrace them, such as was done
with Gilgal Garden.
Whether this property survives and meets the
criteria for historic site designation (such as
through the National Register of Historic Plac-
es) remains to be seen. After all, under National
Register rules, there is a fifty-year cooling-off
period before long-term cultural “significance”
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 73
can be properly assessed, though there is some
flexibility in that rule for properties of “excep-
tional significance.”41 But, contrary to popular
belief, National Register designation provides
no real protection. Salt Lake City could per-
haps squeeze this onto its landmark list, which
would provide some degree of protection. A
preservation easement could also be helpful,
but that requires a qualified organization to
agree to take on that responsibility. Tools such
as these, however, are far from what is need-
ed to assure long-term survival of outsider-art
1
installations. They need day-to-day caretak-
N O .
ers for maintenance, champions for securing
financial and community support, and vision-
aries equal to the task of carrying forward the
I
cultural messages of their creators.
8 8
V O L .
gh
For more than 130 years and counting, Utah’s
architectural and cultural landscape has been
I
enriched by outsider art. Though some of this
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“folk art” is unique to Utah in terms of sub-
ject matter, it reflects themes and trends that
transcend local culture. The creators and their
work reflect tendencies that have played out
elsewhere—both nationally and internation-
73
ally—by other visionary artists. A muse has
always stirred within some of us to create pri-
vately envisioned expressions of aspirations,
memories, and convictions.
We cannot always describe or interpret these
creations in straightforward ways. Yet more
important than fully understanding or inter-
preting these cultural artifacts today is the
need to preserve them for tomorrow. What
seems eccentric to one generation may be high-
ly valued and culturally significant to the next.
We should be careful stewards of our prede-
cessors’ works. Outsider art just might reveal
something important about the human con-
dition that we are blind to in our focus on the
practicalities of daily life.
Notes
1 Roger Cardinal, “Outsider Art and the Autistic Cre-
ator,” Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences
364, no. 1522 (2009): 1459; Daniel Wojcik, “Outsider
Art, Vernacular Traditions, Trauma, and Creativity,”
Western Folklore 67, no. 2/3 (2008): 179–81.
2 The titles of books on this subject also shed light on the
various perspectives from which scholars have studies
3/13/20 12:56 PM
 these creative works. Key background sources include
the following: John Beardsley, Gardens of Revelation:
Environments by Visionary Artists (New York: Abbev-
ille Press, 1995); Michael D. Hall and Eugene W. Met-
calf, Jr., eds., with Roger Cardinal, The Artist Outsider:
Creativity and the Boundaries of Culture (Washington,
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994); Barbara
Brackman and Cathy Dwigans, eds., Backyard Visionar-
ies: Grassroots Art in the Midwest (Lawrence: Univer-
sity Press of Kansas, 1999); Lisa Stone and Jim Zanzi,
Sacred Spaces and Other Places: A Guide to Grottos and
Sculptural Environments in the Upper Midwest (Chi-
cago: The School of the Art Institute of Chicago Press,
1993); John Maizels, Raw Creation: Outsider Art and
Beyond (London: Phaidon, 1996); Lucienne Peiry, Art
1
Brut: The Origins of Outsider Art (New York: Random
N O .
House, 2001); Anthony Petullo, Self-taught and Out-
sider Art: The Anthony Petullo Collection (Champaign:
University of Illinois Press, 2001).
I
3 Various newspaper articles and city directory listings
also referred to Anders John Miller as Andrew Julius
8 8
Miller, Andrew J. Miller, Andrew G. Miller, and An-
dres J. Miller. The terms “the Old Curiosity Shop” and
V O L .
“Crazy House” are used in the captions and descrip-
tions of the only known photographs of his house,
along with other sources cited in this article. See “Misc.
Residences—The Crazy House,” Utah State Historical
I
Society photograph collection. The four images are
U H Q
undated, but they are most likely from the early 1890s
and appear to be from about the same time, within
a few years at least, based on the size of the trees in
front. Two of the photographs, taken at different times
based on photo details, are credited to Sainsbury and
74 Johnson, Photographers, who were partners between
approximately1889 and 1893. See Daniel Davis, “‘Ap-
preciating a Pretty Shoulder’: The Risqué Photographs
of Charles Ellis Johnson,” Utah Historical Quarterly
74, no. 2 (2006): 134. According to the city directories,
Miller was still living at 277 S. 800 East in 1893, so these
photos are apparently of Miller’s first house.
4 “Aged Recluse Goes to Join Lost Lover,” Deseret News,
February 5, 1913, 12; “Funeral of Andres Miller,” Deseret
News, February 7, 1913, 9.
5 “Funeral of Andres Miller,” Deseret News, February
7, 1913, 9; Francis W. Kirkham, Harold Lundstrom,
Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Salt Lake Company, Tales
of a Triumphant People: A History of Salt Lake County,
Utah, 1847–1900 (Salt Lake City: International Society
Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1995), 295–96. Another
account describes Miller as wearing “heavy black
gloves, even in tropical weather, because he believes
the righteous must be clothed in black,” (Salt Lake Tri-
bune, July 28, 1904, 9).
6 Salt Lake Tribune, July 28, 1904, 9.
7 Deseret News, February 5, 1913, 12.
8 “Court Notes,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 28, 1904, 9;
“Miller’s Tender Vigil Is Ended,” Salt Lake Herald Re-
publican, July 29, 1904; “May Be Cured of Mania,” Salt
Lake Telegram, July 28, 1904.
9 “Miller Is Released; Friends May Act,” Salt Lake Tele-
gram, August 1, 1904; “City and Neighborhood,” Salt
Lake Tribune, August 3, 1904.
10 See especially Wojcik, “Outsider Art.”
11 See primarily Deseret News, February 5, 1913, 12; and
Kirkham, et al, Tales of a Triumphant People, 295–96.
12 “Died,” Salt Lake Tribune, February 5, 1913, 12.
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 74
13 Kirkham, et al, Tales of a Triumphant People, 295.
14 There is a gap in the city directory coverage between
1893, when Miller was last listed at 277 S. 800 East, and
1898, when he first shows up at 343 S. 1100 East.
15 Kirkham, et al, Tales of a Triumphant People, 295.
16 Kirkham, et al, Tales of a Triumphant People, 296.
17 Deseret News, February 5, 1913, 12.
18 Robert Dudek, “The King of the World: The True Story
Behind the Curious Sandstone Carving and the Man
Who Created It,” Stinking Desert Gazette, November
1986, 67.
19 “Police Free King, Goats and Horses,” Ogden Standard-
Examiner, November 14, 1935, 24; “‘King of America’
Arrested at Ogden,” Moab Times-Independent, Novem-
ber 21, 1935, 1; “‘King’ Taken to Hospital,” Ogden Stan-
dard-Examiner, December 24, 1935, 12; P. F. McFarland,
“A King Was My Guest,” Ogden Standard-Examiner,
May 17, 1936, 19; “Patient Wields Knife; Attendant
Severely Injured,” Provo Evening Herald, October 5,
1937, 1; Utah, Death and Military Death Certificates,
1904–1961, s.v. “Harlan Andrew,” Certificate of Death,
accessed October 15, 2019, ancestry.com.
20 1940 United States Federal Census, Millard County,
Utah, roll m-t0627–04214, page 1A, William Van de
Vanter; and U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards,
1917–1918, s.v. “William Edward Vandevanter,” both ac-
cessed October 15, 2019, ancestry.com.
21 “Delta’s Newest Pleasure Palace Opens,” Millard Coun-
ty (Utah) Chronicle, May 6, 1926, 1.
22 “Temple Replica Exhibited,” Millard County (Utah)
Chronicle, April 2, 1936, 1.
23 A thorough history of Van’s Hall is documented in the
National Register of Historic Places nomination for
the building that was prepared in 1994 to 1995. NP-
Gallery Digital Asset Management System, s.v. “Van’s
Hall,” accessed September 16, 2019, npgallery.nps.gov
/GetAsset/84fec927-f3b7-4966-b8ff-256b3d9e8b52.
24 “About,” Gilgal Sculpture Garden, accessed September 23,
2019, gilgalgarden.org/about-gilgal-sculpture-garden/;
Ursula M. Brinkmann Pimentel, Gilgal: A Sculpture
Garden in Salt Lake City (Salt Lake City: Associated Art
Historians, 1996).
25 Pimental, Gilgal.
26 Pimental, Gilgal, 2.
27 Richard W. Jackson (1915–2010), interview by Roger
Roper, August 8, 2002; Earl Gilmore, interview by Rog-
er Roper, July 9, 2002. Gilmore was the Tenth Ward
historian in 2002. He confirmed that the garden tours
were scripted, used as a tool for teaching (especially
the youth), and included phonograph musical accom-
paniments. He also observed that “Bishop Child was
a doer,” and that he was “someone who believed in
things strongly.” He further recalled that Bishop Child
intervened with firemen in order to save the signature
stained glass windows in his beloved Tenth Ward Cha-
pel when it caught fire. The firemen wanted to break
out the windows in order to fight the fire inside, but
Child rushed up with an axe and told them in no un-
certain terms that he would cut their firehoses with
his axe if they attempted it. The windows were spared.
The Tenth Ward Chapel is located on the same block as
both Gilgal Garden and Thomas Child’s home.
28 Jackson, interview. Jackson’s family moved into the
Tenth Ward in 1933, and the garden was directly be-
hind their house at 763 East 500 South. He noted that
although some neighbors thought Thomas Child was
3/13/20 12:56 PM
 “nutty” because of the Gilgal project, most had no real
problem with him. Jackson described Child as a “de-
lightful individual” who was “community-minded” and
“very knowledgeable on religious matters.”
29 “The Family Portrait,” Tenth Ward Newsletter, March
1950; Tenth Ward Manuscript History and Historical
Reports, 1849–1983, LR 9051 2, LDS Church History
Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.
30 NPGallery Digital Asset Management System, s.v. “Salt
Lake City Eastside Historic District (Boundary Increase),
accessed October 9, 2019, npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset
/7c5214ea-5246–4d62-a2eb-40c3623f7308.
31 Gail Smith, “Artistry of the Ages,” Salt Lake Tribune,
October 12, 1958, H3.
32 Kenneth Williams, personal communication with the
author, September 20, 2019.The Williams were friends
and neighbors with Nelson during her years in Teas-
dale.
33 Smith, “Artistry of the Ages,” H3.
34 “M. J. ‘Piz,’” Salt Lake Tribune, May 13, 2001, A14.
35 “Art Notes: Utah Folk Artist’s Nuts-and-Bolts Creations
Going to Atlanta,” Salt Lake Tribune, September 8, 1991;
Utah State of the Arts (Ogden: Meridian International,
1993), 140–41.
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 75
36 Plescia’s home exhibits similar features and design mo-
tifs that he has added over the years on the exterior and
in the yard.
37 Recent media coverage of Plescia includes The Gospel
According to Ralphael, produced by VideoWest, Sep-
tember 7, 2016, accessed September 26, 2019, radiowest
.kuer.org/term/videowest; Stephen Dark, “The Fixer,”
City Weekly, August 17, 2016; Glen Warchol, “Com-
pelled to Create—Ralphael Plescia’s Biblical Inspira-
tions,” Salt Lake Magazine, February 8, 2017; Torben
Bernhard and Travis Low, “This Obsessive Utah Art-
ist Spent a Half-Century Building a Personal Shrine,”
Narratively, December 6, 2016, accessed September 28,
2019, narratively.com.
38 The author was part of two-hour tour with Ralphael
1
Plescia on May 5, 2017, sponsored by Atlas Obscura.
N O .
39 Dark, “The Fixer.”
40 Bernhard and Low, “This Obsessive Utah Artist.”
41 U.S. Department of the Interior, National Register Bul-
I
letin, How to Apply the National Register Criteria for
Evaluation (1990; rev. 1995), accessed October 25, 2019,
8 8
nps.gov/nr/publications/bulletins/pdfs/nrb15.pdf.
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3/13/20 12:56 PM
 CELEBRATING THE WORK THAT WOMEN DID
AND DO TO SECURE EQUAL VOTING RIGHTS

100 Years of Women’s Suffrage

A University of Illinois Press Anthology
CompilEd By DAWN DURANTE
1

Introduction By NANCY A. HEWITT

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I
8 8
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I
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76

266 pp. 6 x 9 in. 18 black & white photographs,

3 charts, 12 tables
Paper $26.00; E-book

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS www.press.uillinois.edu

UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 76 3/13/20 12:56 PM

 PUBLIC HISTORY

1
Gathering a Community’s History:

N O .
The Utah Queer Historical Society

I
8 8
V O L .
BY CO N N E LL O ’ D O N OVA N

I
U H Q
The Utah Queer Historical Society (UQHS) is an official program of the
Utah Pride Center, formally organized in January 2019. The mission of
the UQHS is to objectively compile, organize, and safeguard the histo- 77
ry of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer, “plus”
(LGBTIQ+) community of Utah, and to share this history with both the
LGBTIQ+ community and the general public. We currently have sever-
al working committees staffed by both professional and nonprofession-
al volunteers. The society has eight committees, all run by volunteers,
including writing, publications, Pride Festival participation, education,
archives, oral history, exhibitions, and landmarks.

Our writing committee meets monthly at the Salt Lake City Public Li-
brary to teach folks how to write their autobiographies. Once enough
written stories have been collected, they will be edited and published
by the publications committee in our forthcoming journal, tentatively
named The Spectrum. The Pride Festival participation committee pro-
vides informational and hands-on booths at the annual Queer Pride
Festivals in Logan, Ogden, Salt Lake, Provo, St. George, and Moab. The
education committee sponsors lectures, films, and other events, espe-
cially the Oratories Project. At an oratory, an experienced Queer com-
munity leader delivers their oral history in front of a live audience; the
history is videotaped, transcribed, and posted online in both visual and
written formats. These events are quite well attended, drawing an av-
erage of thirty-five people a month. The archives committee is creating
physical and digital archives that contain stories, photographs, videos,
physical artifacts and ephemera, and other items of historical impor-
tance. Our oral history project meets privately with LGBTIQ+ folks to
record and transcribe their histories. The exhibitions committee spon-
sors a rotating exhibit of Queer historical memorabilia (such as t-shirts,

UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 77 3/13/20 12:56 PM

 buttons, programs, photos, posters, and pro-
test signs), using the three display cases we
own at the Pride Center. We also have a land-
marks committee that has created a virtual
tour of Queer Salt Lake City history. We hope
to turn this into a phone app and, working
with city officials, to place historical plaques
at significant sites. We also plan to run educa-
tional programs, including guest speakers and
the screening of educational videos.
We actively seek donations of items relating
1
specifically to Utah’s Queer history, as there
N O .
are several other national projects that gath-
er items from all over the United States. Any-
one wishing to donate items can simply drop
I
them off at the front desk of Utah Pride Cen-
8 8
ter. The staff who work there then pass it on
V O L .
to us. We intend to archive our physical mate-
rials at the University of Utah’s Special Collec-
tions and our digital materials at archive.org.
In addition, Comcast NBCUniversal recently
I
donated $150,000 for the development of a
U H Q
national, open-source digital platform to host
the LGBTQ Digital Archive Hub, so we hope
to plug into that resource. Lastly, we intend to
78 publish a journal, featuring personal histories,
academic research, and other educational and
informational items.
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 78
Our Facebook group has almost 150 members to
date. We also have a digital exhibit of Queer Utah
Ancestors, featuring people significant to our
movement and community who were born prior
to 1940 and have a solid Utah connection. The
online exhibit consists of seventeen profiles, in-
cluding William/Eva McCleery (1850–1932), a
transgender pioneer in Salt Lake City who came
out in the Salt Lake Tribune in 1911, and the fa-
mous bisexual playwright and author Wallace
Thurman (1902–1934), who left Salt Lake City to
join the Harlem Renaissance in 1925. The exhibit
is at utahpridecenter.org/programs/queer-utah
-ancestors/. We also have a popular, high-quali-
ty physical exhibit featuring eleven of these pro-
files at the Utah Pride Center, in the Marquardt
Room. The online and physical exhibits give us
all a deeper sense of belonging, knowing that
“we” have always been here, beginning with the
Indigenous populations who honored and ac-
knowledged the “Two-Spirit” people in their
tribes.
The board, composed of all the committee
heads, meets every month; all are welcome to
attend! For more information on the UQHS,
please contact Connell O’Donovan, odonovan@
ucsc.edu or email queerhistory@utahpride
center.org.
3/13/20 12:56 PM
 BOOK REVIEWS
The Civilian Conservation Corps in
Utah: Remembering Nine Years of
Achievement, 1933–1942
By Kenneth W. Baldridge
Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2019. xvi + 508 pp.
Paper, $34.95
Writing a history of a short-lived agency pro-
gram, especially one as unique as the Civilian
Conservation Corps (CCC), is no small feat.
Kenneth Baldridge has done this. His original
work on the subject was a doctoral disserta-
tion in history at Brigham Young University.
He carried out his research in the late 1960s,
when many of the CCC participants were still
alive, giving us up-close insights into the lives
of some of these men.
I knew Baldridge’s excellent work through
his original 1970 dissertation. As a contracting
archaeologist in Utah, I recorded and photo-
graphed a number of CCC-constructed struc-
tures in the state. As part of my research, I
would regularly pull out Baldridge’s disserta-
tion to refer to what he may have written about
a particular camp or project. However, this was
not a widely available resource. With the publi-
cation of this book, that has changed.
Shortly after taking office, President Franklin
D. Roosevelt proposed the CCC and signed a
bill passed by Congress that established it. It
became one of the most popular and success-
ful of the New Deal agencies. It surely helped
with the unemployment situation during the
depths of the Depression, especially for young
people, but it also supplied much-needed labor
for a wide variety of federal and state agency
projects. In Utah, as in much of the country,
virtually every federal land management agen-
cy benefited from the corps. Baldridge’s book
provides an excellent introduction to the sub-
ject, and always with an eye to how it all played
out in Utah.
The book furnishes information about opera-
tions within the CCC, describing each feder-
al and state agency’s particular project needs,
who the corps workers were, and where they
came from. Those men who were accepted
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 79
into the corps in Utah often came from other
states, sometimes from as far as the East Coast.
Baldridge includes chapters on the type of
projects the CCC carried out and what camp
life was like for participants. Of particular in-
terest, he details the Utah camps, when and
where they operated, and with which agencies
they were affiliated. Baldridge also chronicles
the types of projects undertaken by particular
1
agencies and the specific camps where that
N O .
work was carried out. While not all projects are
listed (that would be a quite daunting task), he
gives many examples and lays out, in general,
I
the types of projects and locations that the CCC
8 8
worked on for each agency. In my own previ-
V O L .
ous research, I often had a hard time finding
this information and was forced to depend on
other available sources, such as surviving camp
I
newsletters.
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The book is well structured, clearly listing ta-
bles and figures, and has a useful, detailed in-
dex. Its appendices present good information
concerning the camps’ locations and duration 79
(or at least such information can be inferred
from the tables). The maps give an adequate
sense of where each camp was located. Howev-
er, a larger, pull-out map with some additional
detail would have enhanced the information.
One of the most interesting aspects of the
CCC that the author points out is how popu-
lar and enduring the legacy of the agency has
been. It lasted only nine years, yet the memory
endures; as he states, “It isn’t just the bridg-
es, campgrounds, stock trails, and emergency
work done by the CCC that have provided ways
for the nation and the state of Utah to recall
the tremendous impact” of the corps. “Orga-
nizations have been created to perpetuate its
legacy; signs have been erected to identify the
location of CCC camps and projects, and many
corps groups have been set up to carry on the
actual work carried out by the enrollees in the
1930s” (359).
As was the case throughout the nation, life was
hard in Utah during the 1930s. Joblessness was
prevalent, wages were low, and most people
just tried to get by. The creation of the CCC and
allied New Deal agencies lent a much-needed
3/13/20 12:56 PM
 boost to the economy and morale of the nation.
Baldridge’s book gives a good look at how one
agency in Utah provided this boost in a time of
need.
—Michael R. Polk
Aspen Ridge Consultants
The Mormon Handcart Migration:
“Tounge nor pen can never tell the
sorrow.”
1
N O .
By Candy Moulton.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019. xv + 172 pp.
Cloth, $29.95
I
8 8
For many decades, members of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have put a
V O L .
great emphasis on their history of migration. At
the heart of that collective memory is the tale
of the handcart pioneers. As the author of this
I
fine version of that story puts it, “Although only
U H Q
about 3,000 people traveled the Mormon Trail
from Iowa City and Florence to Great Salt Lake
City by handcart from 1856 to 1860, the hand-
80 cart story has become an icon of great faith for
millions of members of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints” (188). An inevitable
side effect of this overemphasis is monumen-
tal mythmaking, as church leaders use pioneer
heritage as a tool for bolstering the faith and for
keeping the rising generation in line. Witness
the Trek phenomenon, which takes thousands
of youngsters to the wilderness to reenact the
scenes of the suffering handcart pioneers. As
legends become facts during the enterprise,
the greatest casualty is the actual history of the
handcart migration. This brings us to the ur-
gent need for such a detailed, comprehensive,
and carefully researched study as the work
here under review.
An accomplished Trails enthusiast whose
spouse has a familial connection to the hand-
cart pioneers, the author came to her task de-
termined to tell the story exhaustively and
accurately. Her challenge was to write a bal-
anced account that would land somewhere on
the spectrum between the documentary and
celebratory work of LeRoy R. Hafen and Ann
W. Hafen, Handcarts to Zion, 1856–1860 (1960),
and the gothic polemic of David Roberts, Devil’s
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 80
Gate: Brigham Young and the Great Mormon
Handcart Tragedy (2008). There can be little
doubt that she has succeeded on all levels and
with room to spare. The book showcases the
author’s skill as a storyteller and as an expert
at the craft of producing compelling narrative
history. That said, the book is hard to read: not
through any fault of hers but rather because the
story contains so much pain, at some points re-
lentlessly so, that the book becomes the oppo-
site of a page-turner. You have to put it down
occasionally to escape the gloom that inevita-
bly descends on the reader.
Without doubt, the greatest accomplishments
of the volume come within the first four chap-
ters, which discuss the origins of the handcart
idea, the recruitment and organization of the
first companies, and their journeys across sea
and land to the starting points on the edge of
the Plains. Beginning with chapter four, while
covering the experiences of the first three
handcart parties in 1856, the author quickly
makes evident the strengths and weaknesses of
the handcart concept. She argues persuasively
that the key shortcoming of the handcart idea
was that there was no way these companies
could carry enough food to sustain themselves,
which explains why hunger was so commonly
part of the stories of all ten companies, even
the most successful ones. Brigham Young and
a few other Mormon leaders get due respect
(Young for insisting that no more than three
companies come per year), despite the abun-
dance of evidence that they and not a few
others also made disastrously poor decisions.
Before turning the page to chapter five to begin
reading in six chapters the harrowing account
of the Martin and Willie companies, the reader
has learned that the judgment of history might
be more positive relative to the handcart idea,
despite its weaknesses, had it not been for the
terrible events that haunted the fourth and fifth
companies.
The bulk of the volume, more than 40 percent
of its text, involves a painstaking rehearsal of
the disturbing tragedy that overtook the fourth
and fifth companies as they staggered into an
early winter snowstorm in Wyoming. Their
misfortune—that they left too late and that ev-
ery other conceivable mishap seems to have
befallen them—becomes agonizingly plain as
3/13/20 12:56 PM
 the reader slogs ahead, with death and unimag-
inable suffering on virtually every side once
things begin to come apart. In this regard, the
author’s overemphasis on the Martin and Wil-
lie tragedy helps perpetuate the pioneer myth,
inasmuch as readers of her book would hardly
notice that four times as many handcart emi-
grants made it through with general success.
The book concludes with a reasonable, if brief,
accounting of the final five companies (1857–
1860) and an attempt to make some sense of
the whole business. Here the author stumbles a
bit. Remarkably, she seems not to comprehend
well the motivation behind it—the millenarian
urgency of the Gathering—while instead leav-
ing the impression that Young and others were
merely anxious to bring more laborers to Zion
as cheaply as possible. She also spends not a
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 81
small amount of space noting the foibles and
weaknesses of some of the leaders, from top
to bottom. As far as merely blaming Brigham
Young, she adroitly avoids falling into the Dev-
il’s Gate trap, but she nevertheless concludes
two final chapters with embittered John Chis-
lett’s haunting call for “a day of reckoning” for
the man at the top (185, 196).
In the aggregate, it is very easy to label Can-
dy Moulton’s book as the best work yet on the
intriguing handcart story. Indeed, given her
1
fine writing and the depth of her research, it is
N O .
difficult to imagine a better account of this of-
ten-painful chapter in the wide history of Mor-
mon migration.
I
8 8
—Gene A. Sessions
Weber State University
V O L .
I
U H Q
81
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 NOTICES

My Life in Carbon County in the Westward with Fremont: The Story

1950s
By Ronald G. Watt
Provo: Scrivner Books, 2018. xvi + 210 pp. Paper, $13.95
In My Life in Carbon County in the 1950s, the
historian Ronald Watt takes readers on a road
trip through Carbon County. Watt, who wrote
1
of Solomon Carvalho
By Sophie Greenspan
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018. 164 pp. Paper,
$17.95
Solomon Nunes Carvalho was the Jewish pho-
tographer and artist who accompanied John

the 1997 centennial history of Carbon Coun- C. Frémont on his fifth expedition through the
N O .

ty, uses a personal approach in this volume, Rocky Mountains in 1853. This reprint of the
which he describes as a geographical tour of late Sophie Greenspan’s biography of Carvalho,
the county with snippets from his life mixed in. originally published in 1969, explains the role
I

The communities surveyed in My Life include that he played in the Frémont expedition and
8 8

Castle Gate, Spring Canyon, Standardville, recounts his later publishing of a best-selling
Helper, Kenilworth, Spring Glen, Carbon- book meant to help promote Frémont’s candi-
V O L .

ville, Price, Hiawatha, Wellington, Sunnyside, dacy for the presidency. Carvalho was an im-
and Dragerton. Several aspects of this volume portant figure in American Jewish history, as
will be valuable to researchers: contemporary well as an interesting focal point for the history
I

photographs, an extensive appendix of county of western exploration.

U H Q

businesses, and maps of Carbon County, Emery

County, Price, and the western, eastern, and
southern portions of Carbon County.
82

UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 82 3/13/20 12:56 PM

 2 0 1 9 AWA R D W I N N E R S
Utah State Historical Society Fellows
Edward Leo Lyman
Gregory C. Thompson
Utah State Historical Society Honorary Life
Member
Kenneth L. Alford
Outstanding Achievement Awards
Max Chang, for educating Utah students on the
Chinese contributions to the building of the
transcontinental railroad.
Spike 150 Commission’s Executive Commit-
tee—Spencer Stokes, Douglas Foxley, Aimee
McConkie, Max Chang, and Christopher Rob-
inson—for leading the statewide celebration
of the sesquicentennial of the transcontinental
railroad.
Chinese Railroad Workers Descendants As-
sociation, for educating, preserving, and pro-
moting the contributions of Chinese, Chinese
American, and Asian Pacific Americans to the
United States and the transcontinental railroad.
William P. MacKinnon Award
Melissa Coy, Digitization Program Specialist
Sponsored by William P. MacKinnon
Utah State Historical Society Best Book in
Utah History Award
James R. Swensen, In a Rugged Land: Ansel Ad-
ams, Dorothea Lange, and the Three Mormon
Towns Collaboration, 1953–1954 (University of
Utah Press, 2018)
Sponsored by the Utah State Historical Society
Smith-Pettit Foundation Best Documentary
Book in Utah History Award
Gary James Bergera, ed., Confessions of a Mor-
mon Historian: The Diaries of Leonard J. Ar-
rington (Signature Books, 2018)
Sponsored by the Smith-Pettit Foundation
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 83
Dale L. Morgan Award
Best scholarly article in UHQ
Allan Kent Powell, “Utah and World War I”
(Summer 2018)
Sponsored by Allan and Thalia Smart and
Zeese Papanikolas
1
Charles Redd Center for Western Studies
N O .
Award
I
Best general-interest article in UHQ
8 8
Scott K. Thomas, “Reexamining the Radical:
V O L .
Stephen Holbrook and the Utah Strategy for
Protesting the Vietnam War” (Winter 2018)
Sponsored by the BYU Charles Redd Center for
I
Western Studies
U H Q
Nick Yengich Memorial Editors’ Choice
Award
Cullen Battle, “Ghosts of Mountain Dell: Trans-
83
portation and Technological Change in the
Wasatch Mountains,” UHQ (Winter 2018)
Sponsored by Ron Yengich
LeRoy S. Axland History Article Award
Best Utah history article or chapter in a publi-
cation other than UHQ
Brian Q. Cannon, “’To Buy Up the Lamanite
Children as Fast as They Could: ‘Indentured
Servitude and Its Legacy in Mormon Society,”
Journal of Mormon History (Spring 2018)
Sponsored by Michael W. Homer
Helen Papanikolas Student Paper Award
Maya L. Brimhall, Brigham Young University,
“The Nineteenth Century Club of Provo, Utah:
A Powerful Force in the Formation of Women’s
Clubs in Utah”
Sponsored by Patricia Lyn Scott and Linda
Thatcher
3/13/20 12:56 PM
 CONTRIBUTORS
1
N O .
CHRISTINE COOPER-ROMPATO is an As-
sociate Professor of English at Utah State Uni-
versity, where she teaches medieval literature.
I
Her medieval research focuses on fourteenth-
8 8
and fifteenth-century English devotional and
visionary texts, as well as vernacular and Latin
V O L .
sermons. She is also deeply interested in nine-
teenth- and twentieth-century history in areas
including religion, gender, science, and tech-
I
nology. Cooper-Rompato has written several
U H Q
essays, both published and forthcoming, about
early African American mathematicians.
MADISON S. HARRIS is a Kane Scholar and
84 member of the Chancellor’s Leadership Class
at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs,
where she double majors in history and biolo-
gy. Her paper “A Cloud of Controversy: George
Washington and Smallpox Inoculation during
the American Revolution” won the best paper
award at the annual Phi Alpha Theta Confer-
ence in Colorado and was subsequently pub-
lished in a peer-reviewed journal. She has
presented her research at the John Whitmer
Historical Association Conference, as well as
local and regional conferences. She plans to at-
tend medical school in 2021.
MATTHEW L. HARRIS is Professor of Histo-
ry at Colorado State University-Pueblo, where
he teaches and writes on religion and politics,
American religious history, and civil rights. He
received a BA and an MA from Brigham Young
University and an MPhil and PhD from the
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Af-
fairs at Syracuse University. He is the author,
editor, or coeditor of numerous works, includ-
ing The Mormon Church and Blacks (2015),
Thunder from the Right (2019), and “Watchman
on the Tower” (2020). He is currently working
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 84
on a book-length manuscript entitled “The
Long-Awaited Day: Blacks, Mormons, and the
Lifting of the Priesthood and Temple Ban,
1907–2019.”
JESSICA MARIE NELSON received a BA in
American studies from Brigham Young Uni-
versity and an MS in history from Utah State
University. As a graduate student at USU, she
held the Milner/Butler editorial fellowship
for Western Historical Quarterly. Her master’s
thesis, “‘The Mississippi of the West’: Reli-
gion, Conservatism, and Racial Politics in Utah,
1960–1978,” was awarded the best master’s the-
sis by the Mormon History Association in 2018.
CONNELL O’DONOVAN is a historian, bi-
ographer, and professional genealogist. In
1988, he gave his first presentation on Gay and
Lesbian Mormon history at Affirmation’s con-
ference in Los Angeles. A year later, he became
the founding director of the Gay and Lesbian
Historical Society of Utah. He has also taught
courses on Queer history at the Harvey Milk
Institute in San Francisco. He currently serves
as chair of the education committee of the Utah
Queer Historical Society, a project of the Utah
Pride Center.
GREGORY E. SMOAK is director of the
American West Center and Associate Profes-
sor of History at University of Utah, where
he specializes in American Indian, American
western, environmental, and public history.
His association with the American West Center
spans three decades and has included projects
with Native peoples in Utah, Idaho, Colorado,
Arizona, Nevada, and California. He currently
serves as vice president of the National Council
on Public History.
3/13/20 12:56 PM
 IN MEMORIAM

Floyd A. O’Neil,

1
1927–2018

N O .
I
8 8
The Utah and western history communities lost one of their most influ-

V O L .
ential, generous, and colorful figures when Dr. Floyd A. O’Neil passed
away at his Salt Lake City home on April 18, 2018. In his nearly nine-
ty-one years of life, and in a career that spanned over half a century at

I
the University of Utah’s American West Center, Floyd taught Utah and

U H Q
Native American history, mentored generations of graduate students,
and helped shape the practice of public history in the West. At the time
of his death, he was director emeritus of the American West Center, pro-
fessor emeritus of history at the University of Utah, and a fellow of the
Utah State Historical Society. His many honors included the Award of 85

UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 85 3/13/20 12:56 PM

 Merit and an Honorary Lifetime Membership
in the Western History Association. In 2001,
the Native Scholars group of that same orga-
nization honored him with a lifetime achieve-
ment award for his mentorship. Even more
important to Floyd were the numerous awards
and recognitions he received from Native peo-
ples, including the Ute Indian Tribe, the Pueblo
of Zuni, and the Intertribal Council of Nevada.
Born in the Uinta Basin on July 14, 1927, Floyd
spent his childhood on the Uintah and Ouray
1
Reservation. His earliest playmates and oldest
N O .
friends were his Ute schoolmates. He sustained
many of those friendships through the course
of his life, and his early experiences engen-
I
dered a deep interest in the history of Native
8 8
peoples and of the Utes in particular. In Floyd’s
V O L .
early teens, the O’Neil family moved to Carbon
County where his father and brothers worked in
the coal mines. Serious health issues kept Floyd
from following them into the mines and instead
I
he turned to a life in education. After taking a
U H Q
degree (he always insisted that degrees were
earned or “taken,” not granted or received!) at
the University of Utah in 1957, he taught high
86 school for a time before returning to the uni-
versity for graduate studies in the mid-1960s. It
was there that he found his life’s work. In 1967,
due to his lifelong association with the Ute peo-
ple and his knowledge of Native history, Floyd
was recruited to work at the American West
Center on the Doris Duke American Indian
Oral History Project. He would remain central
to the life of the center, building and sustaining
it for the next fifty-one years. He completed his
PhD in 1973 and went on to serve as the center’s
director from 1986 until his nominal “retire-
ment” in 1996. In truth, Floyd could never re-
tire. As director emeritus he remained vital to
the center and to the university’s relationship
with Utah’s Native peoples.
Floyd devoted his career to putting history to
work for the benefit of the West’s diverse com-
munities. The Duke Oral History Project led
to work with dozens of tribal nations across
the American West. Floyd oversaw the collec-
tion of thousands of oral histories, coordinated
the creation of tribal archives, facilitated the
preparation of major land claims cases, and
co-authored or directed the writing of twen-
ty-six tribal histories. In these projects Floyd
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 86
pioneered an innovative approach. Working
directly with tribal members as authors, he es-
sentially mobilized the resources of a research
university to help Native peoples tell their own
histories. He also ensured that tribes would
hold the copyright to their published histories.
Patricia Albers, the noted anthropologist who
succeeded Floyd as the center’s director, recalls
his “unswerving dedication to Native American
history and the importance of doing it through
oral history.” She also remembers him as “one
of the kindest and most generous people I’ve
had the pleasure of knowing in my lifetime.”
Native history was just one part of Floyd’s
work. Under his care and attention, the Amer-
ican West Center led the way in documenting
and interpreting the histories of Utah’s ethnic
and minority communities, including its Jap-
anese American and Latinx communities. In-
deed, in the words of Will Bagley, “Floyd was
the most public of public historians.” Along the
way he also published influential articles and
co-edited important collections of essays, in-
cluding 1985’s Churchmen and the Western In-
dians. His final publication, co-authored with
his wife Shauna, “The Park City to Fort Thorn-
burgh Road,” appeared in the Spring 2017 issue
of the Utah Historical Quarterly.
In addition to scholarship, Floyd was a beloved
and respected teacher. Although he never held
a regular appointment in the university’s his-
tory department, his Utah and American In-
dian history courses were consistently among
the department’s most heavily subscribed and
highly rated courses. His enthusiasm, humor,
and often blunt-spoken ways resonated with
students. That talent in the classroom was
apparent even is his early days teaching high
school in Price and Salt Lake City. Floyd’s pas-
sion for history and generous nature stuck with
his students, so much so that in the summer
of 2017 “Mr. O’Neil” was the guest of honor at
a reunion of the Carbon High School Class of
1962.
I was one of many whose lives were shaped by
Floyd’s friendship and mentorship. In 1987, I
came to the University of Utah to study under
the tutelage of Richard White. At one of our
first meetings Richard told me to go up to the
American West Center and introduce myself
to Floyd. It was a life-changing event. For the
3/13/20 12:56 PM
 next thirty-one years Floyd was a constant in
my life. He hired me to work at the center, first
during summers and then year-round, and he
offered advice and countless lunches, unwaver-
ing friendship and support during hard times,
and endless “encouragement” (“dissertate
damn you!” or “get your damned union card!”)
while I struggled to write my dissertation. But
I was not alone. Floyd impacted the lives of so
many who went on to interpret Utah and the
West’s history, including Richard White, Patty
Limerick, Greg Thompson, Pat Albers, Kathryn
MacKay, David Rich Lewis, Laura Bayer, Will
Bagley, and Phil Notarianni, to name but a few.
Put simply, those who met Floyd could nev-
er forget him. He was a unique combination
of homespun aphorisms and sophisticated in-
terests. He regularly reminded graduate stu-
dents with grand, amorphous theories that they
should never try to “stretch a rat’s ass over a rain
barrel,” and he devoted his life to studying the
history of his home state and region. Yet he was
UHQ 88_1 Text.indd 87
equally well read in world history and literature.
He cherished trips to Europe with Shauna and
the French cuisine he first enjoyed in his moth-
er’s kitchen. Once as a young man he rode the
train and hitchhiked from Price to Salt Lake
City to see the 1948 film adaptation of Hamlet
starring Lawrence Olivier. Richard White, one
of the most honored and respected historians of
his generation, sums up Floyd best: “There are
only two people I have met in my life whom I
could not describe by comparing them to some-
one else. One was Floyd. He was sui generis. He
1
came from a West that is nearly gone now, but he
N O .
was never a relict. He was as shrewd an observ-
er and as incisive and hilarious a recorder of the
world around him as anyone I knew. He taught
I
me much of what I know about the West. I will
8 8
miss him until the day I die, but I also cannot
V O L .
think of him without smiling.”
—Gregory E. Smoak
I
American West Center
U H Q
University of Utah
87
3/13/20 12:56 PM
 U TA H I N F O C U S
1
N O .
I
8 8
V O L .
I
U H Q

88

A ringside shot from a boxing benefit sponsored
by Salt Lake City newspapers for the relief of
polio, January 1945. The poliovirus is highly
contagious and, before the development of polio
vaccines in the mid-1950s, parents lived in fear
of the disease that could permanently disable
or kill their children. The worst documented
epidemic occurred in the summer of 1916, with
27,000 cases and 6,000 deaths nationwide. To-
day, almost all children who receive vaccina-
tions are protected from the disease. Utah State
Historical Society, photograph no. 1308.

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