50 years ago today - Jul 2, 1965

The NAACP in July 1965 passed a unanimous resolution asking all Third World nations "to refuse to grant visa to missionaries and representatives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . . . until such time as the doctrine of non-white inferiority is changed and rescinded by that church and a positive policy of support for civil rights is taken."

[Source: "Critical of Church: NAACP Studies Action," "Benson Ties Rights Issue to Reds in Mormon Rift," Washington Post, 13 Apr. 1965, A-5; Seattle Times, 5 May 1965,13; "NAACP Asks Foreign Bar of Missionaries," Daily Utah Chronicle, 6 May 1965, 1, 3, 4; Journal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 May 1965, 6, Microforms, Marriott Library. Quinn could not find any reference to this in Deseret News or Salt Lake Tribune for May; The Salt Lake City chapter of the NAACP had called for the national resolution in apparent response to Apostle Benson's statement a month earlier that the civil rights movement was Communist and revolutionary. From D. Michael Quinn, Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26:2 (Summer 1992), also in Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power Salt Lake City (Signature Books, 1994), Chapter 3.]

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