Elijah Abel, the NAACP, and the Abandoned Float That Pressured a Revelation

In the spring of 1978, 47 years ago to the day, there was a “Days of ‘47” parade for Pioneer Day in Salt Lake City. At the time the parade was planned, the church continued its unpopular priesthood ban on black members of the church. The ban was lifted weeks before the parade occurred, but during the planning stages, the Salt Lake Branch of the NAACP quietly advanced one of the most symbolically powerful acts of local protest against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ ban on Black men holding the priesthood.

The float’s theme—“Elijah Abel, Mormon Elder Approved by Joseph Smith Jr., 1836”—was a direct challenge to the Church’s narrative that the priesthood ban had always been in place and divinely mandated. By foregrounding Abel’s overlooked legacy, the float would have publicly contradicted the Church’s justifications in a high-profile event sponsored by the city.

A short article published in The Salt Lake Tribune on April 4, 1978, details the planned float honoring Elijah Abel.

S.L. NAACP Eyes ’47 Parade Float

The Salt Lake Chapter of the NAACP will enter a float in the Days of ’47 parade on July 24 [1978]. The decision was made after considerable debate at their regular monthly meeting Monday. Some members of the organization felt by having a float in the parade it would be a means of recognition for the blacks who came across the plains with, and before the pioneers.

One member said people of the state would see that blacks were early settlers and realize blacks had had an impact on the area. Another person said it is a “public parade. Just because we enter a float does not mean we have to join the church.”

Juanita Robison said a float would create “a better image of the NAACP.” However, members in opposition voiced the sentiment expressed by Chapter President, James E. Dooley, that the “NAACP doe’s not join a racist concept and the Mormon church is a racist institution.” Mr. Dooley added the impression would bo given that the churchs policy toward blacks “was right” with the NAACP. However, Mr. Dooley stressed that if the float were approved he would work to make it a success.

Salt Lake Tribune | 1978-04-04 | Page 23
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-salt-lake-tribune-s-l-naacp/126947773/
https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/file?id=28720737

Elijah Abel

The story of Elijah Abel is central to this history. Born 1808, he became one of the earliest Black elders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Abel’s ordination was signed by Joseph Smith himself in 1836 while in Kirtland, Ohio, and he served faithfully until his death in 1884.

Abel served missions and was personally affirmed by Joseph Smith, yet his priesthood legacy was buried as Brigham Young institutionalized racial exclusion. Although later denied certain temple rites, Abel remained a pivotal symbol of racial complexity within the church. Abel’s story was rediscovered by historians and activists who used it to expose the doctrinal inconsistency of the priesthood ban.

Byron Marchant

Byron Marchant, a former LDS member and early critic of the priesthood restriction, was instrumental in proposing that the NAACP sponsor a float in Salt Lake City’s Days of ‘47 Parade, highlighting the story of Elijah Abel—a Black man ordained as an elder by Joseph Smith Jr. in 1836. Marchant had recently joined the local NAACP and was gaining influence among its active membership, including Glenn Edwards, a Black activist and publisher of the Minority Reporter. Together, they introduced the float proposal at a branch meeting, catching then-NAACP president Jim Dooley off guard.

Behind the scenes, Marchant had also filed a lawsuit against LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball, arguing that the priesthood ban was discriminatory. On June 7, 1978, Kimball failed to appear at a court hearing as earlier ordered by the court; Marchant sued Kimball for failure to appear as ordered by a lawful subpoena. Then, just two days later, on June 9, the Church announced what it called a revelation: the priesthood would be extended to all worthy male members regardless of race. As a consequence of this announcement, both the float plans and the lawsuit were dropped.

The NAACP float was never completed. According to Marchant, “After the 9 June LDS priesthood flip-flop announcement was made, the NAACP float project was abandoned. The announcement alone… was sufficient to do the job.” In his view, the pressure had worked, even if the Church never acknowledged it. “LDS Church claims following their priesthood ‘Revelation,’ that there was little pressure at the time… didn’t mention either my 7 June 1978 lawsuit against President Kimball or the NAACP Days of ‘47 Elijah Able float.” Other sources of pressure—such as protests over BYU’s racially segregated athletics program and international criticism—likely played a role as well, but these local acts of defiance were quietly erased from the Church’s official narrative.

Abandoned Plans

While the June 1978 announcement marked a significant shift in LDS policy, it came after years of agitation both inside and outside the Church. The abandoned NAACP float—subtle yet powerful in its symbolism—was one of many pressure points leading up to that moment. This created a direct overlap with the NAACP’s float plans, rendering the float campaign moot once the church reversed course.

Had the Elijah Abel float appeared in the 1978 Days of ’47 Parade, it would have been an unmistakable public challenge to the LDS Church’s narrative about race and priesthood. The parade, a state-sanctioned celebration of Mormon pioneer heritage, rarely included overt political or religious critique—especially not from within the Black community. A float honoring a Black Mormon elder, ordained by Joseph Smith himself, would have forced a wider audience—including faithful Latter-day Saints and Utah civic leaders—to confront the historical reality that the priesthood ban was not rooted in the church’s founding doctrine but was instead a later invention. It would have raised questions the Church was actively avoiding: Why was Elijah Abel’s priesthood valid in the 1830s, but not for his Black spiritual descendants in the 1970s? What had changed—and why?

The float could have sparked conversations across dinner tables and ward meetings, especially among Latter-day Saints who had accepted the priesthood ban as divine will without knowing its contradictions. Local news coverage of the parade, along with interviews and editorials, might have amplified this cognitive dissonance, creating a kind of cultural and theological crisis in the heart of Mormon country. Even among those outside the LDS Church, the float would have given public voice to Black Utahns challenging both religious racism and civic exclusion. Its presence in the parade might have encouraged more Black Mormons to speak out, more white members to question, and more national attention on the pressure building in Salt Lake. In short, the float could have made it much harder for the LDS Church to claim, as it later did, that the 1978 priesthood “revelation” came unbidden, uninfluenced by external pressures. Its cancellation may have been a strategic silence—an absence that said just as much as its presence would have.

Marchant’s efforts, along with those of Glenn Edwards and others, remind us that social change often hinges on both quiet organizing and public confrontation. The float never rolled down the streets of Salt Lake City, but its planned presence helped move a mountain.

In an interview, Byron Marchant personally described his efforts in 1978 to challenge the LDS Church’s racial policies through the Salt Lake City NAACP. He explains that this change came amid growing pressures, including his own lawsuit, even as the church publicly downplayed external influence.

There is an NAACP item that may deserve to be mentioned.

When the Salt Lake NAACP Branch lawyers were busy throwing Bert and Charlie under the bus, the branch president was Jim Dooley (he selected the 1974 volunteer lawyers). I was not impressed. Four years later, after I had learned of the Kirtland Ohio Elijah Able license as an elder over the signature of Joseph Smith, Jr., and I had been arrested on Temple Square during the April 1978 General Conference, I joined the NAACP and began attending their meetings, thus becoming acquainted with the active membership. Jim Dooley was a type of person who, it seemed to me, was interested in being on good terms with the power elite in Salt Lake, including the LDS Church priesthood leaders. My purpose in joining the local NAACP was, among others, to see if something might be done to encourage the few Salt Lake blacks to apply their influence to get some things changed, especially regarding LDS racial bigotry.

Eventually, around the end of April and early May 1978, with the support of Glenn Edwards, a black activist and the publisher of a monthly newspaper, Minority Reporter, we decided to propose in an NAACP meeting that the Salt Lake NCAAP Branch apply for approval to sponsor a Days of ‘47 Parade float in their 1978 July 24th Parade. The proposal took President Dooley by surprise and he expressed his opposition. Edwards and I, however, were well acquainted with the members at the meeting and when the vote took place that same meeting the proposal passed in a vote of local NAACP members. The float was to be on the subject of Elijah Able, Mormon Elder Approved by Joseph Smith, Jr., 1836.

Dooley was fit to be tied but in the end, at the same meeting, he announced that even though he was not happy about the vote, since the membership wanted the float to be in the July parade, he would support it 100%.

When the 9 June 1978 so-called black priesthood “Revelation” was announced, a month and a half before the scheduled parade, the planned NAACP Elijah Able float was still a project in process. After the 9 June LDS priesthood flip-flop announcement was made, the NAACP float project was abandoned. The announcement alone, which was covered by at least one local daily newspaper, was sufficient to do the job. LDS Church claims following their priesthood “Revelation,” that there was little pressure at the time to bring about the change, didn’t mention either my 7 June 1978 lawsuit against President Kimball or the NAACP Days of ‘47 Elijah Able float—it seemed, although they were well aware of at least these two obvious points of pressure, and there were others like BYU athletics, they were simply pretending there were none.

Byron Marchant, Interview, Jan 14, 2024

A 2011 retrospective source on the June 1978 LDS policy change includes:

Two days prior to the June 9, 1978, announcement (some like Bringhurst mistakenly claim it was June 8, 1978), due to the legal proceedings regarding my April 1, 1978, arrest by LDS Church security on Temple Square, I sued Spencer W. Kimball for his illegal activities during this trial (his lawyers had made a mistake and they would have lost the legal issue and, therefore, Kimball would have been ordered to pay a small fine). This suit by me against Kimball was filed June 7, 1978.

Another point that played was the decision by the Salt Lake NAACP chapter to request from the Days of 47 Parade people permission to sponsor a float on the subject of Elijah Able, Mormon Elder in their July 24, 1978, parade. I had joined the NAACP and with the help of others members got this motion to pass during a spring 1978 NAACP meeting.

Byron Marchant, Comment September 30, 2012
https://mormonheretic.org/2011/07/10/events-leading-up-to-the-1978-revelation/#comment-6006

Where Is NAACP?
Editor, Tribune: The arrest of Byron Marchant on the LDS Temple grounds April 2, at approximately 1 : 15 p.m. brings Into sharper focus the continual problem of discrimination against Negroes by the Mormon Church. The roots of that arrest; of Mr. Merchants long fight to be heard by the president of the LDS Church; his voting (a lone negative vote In an audience of 8,000) not to sustain N. Eldon Tanner In his present position as first counsellor In the First Presidency of that church; of his subsequent excommunication from the church; of his loss of employment as the custodian of Liberty Ward, amounting to economic sanctions for voting his conscience in a free country.

All these events came about as a result of his trying to bring equality and Justice to Negro
hoys in the LDS ward of a Boy Scout troop, a number of years ago, of which he was scoutmaster. That question remains unanswered, either by the LDS Church or by the Boy
Scouts of America. The question; Can black, Negro, boys, members of LDS ward Boy Scout troops, hold the position of senior patrol leaders? A firm “yes or no from the LDS hierarchy should be stated. It is not a question of how many or If no Negro boys belong to LDS Boy Scout troops, it Is a question of principle, one of fairness and Another problem; Why the lack of support for Mr. Marchant, and others who have fought for equality regardless of color of skin or ancestry, by the NAACP, locally and nationally, of which Byron is a member, also by other Negroes in and out of the church?

We recognize that difficulties arise in this area, especially economic and political, for any
one person to “buck the establishment, but an attempt by a united front, both black and white, locally and nationally, headed by local and national leaders of NAACP and supported by their members and others, would help in this fight for justice and equality for all people. There are people of different color of skin, but there is only one race: The human race. Liberty and freedom, human rights, should not be denied anyone in a democratic society, especially under the Constitution of the United States of America.
JOHN W. FITZGERALD

Clarifying Article
Editor, Tribune: On April 3 your paper contained a story about me. It was entitled Dissident Arrested at Temple Square, and contained some errors and omissions that I
think will Interest you. I was arrested by the chief of LDS Security, Earl Jones, and not by the Salt Lake City Police Department. It was a citizens arrest. I was detained for seven hours in the Salt Lake County Jail, without being allowed to make a phone call. I was not read my rights, and was intimidated by the jail personnel. One of them said to me that I would probably be detained for the entire night.

I do not consider myself to be a dissident. Those Mormons involved in promoting racism
are dissidents. The 1964 Civil Rights Act is the law. There never has been a doctrine in the
Mormon Church denying blacks the priesthood. Religious freedom in America permits racial discrimination, however, U.S. Law prohibits it in certain situations such as federal programs (Boy Scouts, land patents, etc.).

The article implied that I offered literature to several people waiting in line to attend
conference. In fact, I offered it to one person, an acquaintance of nearly two years, and no
one else. That person readily accepted and after giving it I had no more in my possession. I appreciate your interest. I hope In the future you do not allow yourselves to be misled by church spokespersons.
BYRON MARCHANT

Salt Lake Tribune | 1978-04-15 | Page 23
https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/file?id=28721856

Dissident drops suit

SALT LAKE CITY (UPI) – Mormon dissident Byron Marchant who once forced the church to loosen racial restrictions on Boy Scout troops it sponsored Friday dismissed a lawsuit he bad filed against Church President Spencer W. Kimball.

“We dismissed it voluntarily as a show of good faith immediately after the announcement” that blacks had been admitted to the Mormon priesthood said Marchant’s attorney Brian
Barnard.

Marchant was arrested during the church’s April conference and charged with trespassing. He subpoenaed Kimball to testify in the case but the subpoena was quashed in Third District Court.

Barnard obtained a court hearing Thursday to protest the quashing of the original subpoena and once again subpoenaed the church president.

When Kimball did not appear Barnard filed a civil suit charging Kimball with failure to honor the second subpoena. He asked for nominal damages of $1 and a penalty judgment of $100.

When Kimball announced Friday that he had received revelation from the Lord opening up the priesthood to blacks Barnard said he immediately dismissed the suit.

Marchant has been an outspoken critic of the church’s racial policies, which for 141 years
excluded blacks from the priesthood. He was excommunicated earlier this year for his defiance of church leaders and their pronouncements.

In 1974 Marchant was a Boy Scout troop leader who determined that it was unfair that two qualified black scouts could not attain the position of “senior patrol leader” because that office was reserved for the president of the church “deacon’s quorum” — a priesthood group.

Marchant went to the NAACP which filed a federal court lawsuit. The suit was dropped when the church agreed to discontinue the requirement that senior patrol leaders also be presidents of their deacons’ quorums.

Logan Herald Journal | 1978-06-11 | Page 8
https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/file?id=30006598

Activism

This float is tied to the civil rights era. Though the church discourages what it calls activism against the church, and calls it a tactic of Satan, these grassroots movements call for justice and it can’t be denied that they at least helped nudge a major religious reversal.

Were you alive and in the church during these days? Were you involved in the activism? If you weren’t around then, where do you think you would have sided? Would you have spoken out against the racist doctrines and policies of the church? Would you have been concerned with the discriminatory practices of God’s true church?

The proposed Elijah Abel float was an act of peaceful defiance—an attempt to reclaim space in a public celebration with a message that directly challenged institutional injustice. It echoes in contemporary actions like Utah Pride marches, lighting the ‘Y’ on BYU’s mountainside in rainbow colors to support LGBTQ+ students, or the Ordain Women movement that publicly called for gender equality within the LDS priesthood. Similar expressions include Black Menaces, a group of Black BYU students confronting campus racism through viral interviews, and Sam Young’s “Protect LDS Children” campaign to end sexually explicit interviews with minors in church settings. Each of these acts shares the same spirit: marginalized voices using visibility, symbolism, and protest to prompt difficult conversations in a community conditioned to avoid them. These moments push up against deeply ingrained cultural and doctrinal norms, not with violence or mockery, but with presence and truth.

There is still much room for similar acts of resistance today: Imagine a “Second Anointing Awareness Week” where former insiders publicly educate members about secretive temple rites, or a grassroots campaign where families wear shirts printed with the names of excommunicated scholars and activists to Sunday services. A group could propose an inclusive float in a future Pioneer Day Parade celebrating LGBTQ+ pioneers—spiritual or otherwise—who’ve been erased from the narrative. Activists might organize a candlelight vigil outside General Conference to honor those harmed by purity culture, reparative therapy, or ecclesiastical abuse. Like the Elijah Abel float, these actions wouldn’t just make a statement—they would force a reckoning, creating spaces for truth that the institutional church has long tried to avoid.

If you’ve struggled with any of these shelf-breaking issues from the culture and history of the church, let us know your full story by creating a profile on wasmormon.org and share the complex details of your faith crisis. The site hosts such stories to validate doubts and normalize leaving a church you may no longer believe in.

• Byron Marchant, Accused Dissident, Unjustifiably Excommunicated for Opposing Priesthood Ban in 1977
• Elijah Able, Early Black Mormon Received Priesthood via Joseph Smith
• 1969 Official First Presidency Statement on the Doctrines of Banning Blacks from the Priesthood
• Authoritative Statement by the LDS Church on the Doctrine of Blacks in 1949
• Mormons and the NAACP – Blacks and the Priesthood
• https://ordainwomen.org/byrons-song/
• https://mormonheretic.org/2011/07/10/events-leading-up-to-the-1978-revelation/
• https://mormonheretic.org/2015/02/16/remembering-black-protests-of-the-1960s-70s/
• https://www.coloradoan.com/picture-gallery/sports/2015/02/12/1970-csu-students-protest-lds-church/23309601/
• Salt Lake Tribune, April 4, 1978, “S.L. NAACP Eyes ’47 Parade Float” (Newspapers.com).
• “Events Leading Up to the 1978 Revelation” blog, referencing NAACP float and Marchant’s lawsuit (Mormon Heretic).
• Wikipedia article on Elijah Abel for life overview.
• Mormonr: Timeline of 1978 priesthood reversal