A while back, I read Frederick Douglass' autobiography. Douglass was an escaped slave who later became a scholar and famous abolitionist. It was a fantastic, fantastic read. I also read Uncle Tom's Cabin, which is highly evangelical, but a very powerful abolitionist work. When I read Douglass' and Stowe's works, I felt like they were charged with morality, spirituality, love, and goodness. They were clearly on the side of good.

I just realized that Brigham Young was contemporary with both of them. Apologists talk about Brigham Young's racism being excusable because he was a product of his times. When you compare his speeches with the works of Douglass and Stowe, who were writing around the same time, it becomes apparent that Young was actually worse than his contemporaries. Well, at least the contemporaries who were on the side of good.

I guess one can assume that The Mormon God is both a racist and polygamist and conclude a barbarian who is presently being prevented from having His twin pillars of truth in his church because of his wayward son Lucifer who brought light to the world regarding his barbarian father.

Very good insight.

I've also read Douglass's autobiography - also see it is a worthwhile read. So agree that there were quite a few contemporaries of old bully, racist Brigham who were rather decent human beings.

Way different in my opinion from this prophet who really loved making a profit and at anyone else's expense. He loved being the big loud seen King of the West and he wanted the West to be white in color and the people to be in his cult so that they were under HIM, THE kING. He had his body guards and the Danites to march under whatever directions he dished out. He was plain mean in my book.

Fantastic insight. I'm going to keep this one in my back pocket.

I keep seeing TBM's push the "infallability" of prophets line but I just can't accept it on major, fundamental issues of human decency. It seems shocking that BY contemporaries without any spirit of "revelation" or "prophecy" could be so right while BY was so blatantly and disgustingly wrong. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the spirit of revelation and the spirit of prophecy.

Even she, mixed-up woman that she was, supported the Abolition movement. She lived briefly in the South with her first (of three) husband (Mark Glover), and saw slavery first hand. Glover died of a a tropical fever (typhoid, I think), and she returned to New England, pregnant. She was a mixed-up woman with a mixed-up religion, but she was right on this one.

We all have our idiosyncracies. Eddy was carefully reassessed by historians in the last fifty years by no less than Martin Mardy - 'mixed up' would not be a title he would give her, I don't think.

For those in Utah with interests in authentic history and not LDS revisionist pablum, the reprints the Tanners offer are a bargain, and both Mrs. Stenhouse's work and her husband's are available in reasonably priced photostatic volumes.

There's a general consistency in the works the LDS Church has denounced as "anti-Mormon literature," and unlike Ann Eliza Webb Young's "Wife Number 19" who was vilified as an estranged wife, the Stenhouses are credible and articulate individuals who converted to Mormonism and were members of the Godbeite movement that sought to challenge Brigham Young and the church's economic stranglehold on Utah Territy in the years before statehood.

I have never heard of Fredrick Douglass, although of course I know of Harriet Beecher Stowe of Uncle Tom's Cabin fame. Remember I was not educated in the US. I will be sure to get a copy and read his book. I work today with the Aboriginal people in my area, as a tutor at university. My job is to help offset any educational disadvantage they suffer because of their race. I am SURE there would be parallels between what Frederick had to say and what Aboriginal people have been saying here. I will be very interested to read it!

As for old BY, well as far as I am concerned ENOUGH SAID, the man was a misogonist, racist, egotistical narcissistic $%#$@&*. Should I go on? I think not, I would be kicked off the site!!

The specifics of the Civil War era aren't an area of history I've looked at deeply (only the Mormons role at the time), but I did catch the PBS program on Douglass this last year.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1539.html

Douglass is one of four remarkable African-Americans who played prominet roles during that era and the years after; the others were Harriet Tubman, George Washington Carver, and Booker T. Washington.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2015 02:09AM by SL Cabbie.

Thanks for the link SLC, what a fascinating man.

Does anyone else notice that every major civil rights issue to come down the pipe, the church always seems to be on the wrong side? This thread is a perfect illustration of that. I know, I know, 1978 fixed everything...yay!!! So by celestial time calculations, 2115 will be the church's year for women! um, I gotta do a little more calculations for gay people...:(

BTW Frederick Douglas was a remarkable human being. Ironically his speech and actions Transcended the "attitudes of the time." In fact, many Americans had the moral courage to oppose slavery and racism. I hear that prophets are "products of their time" argument all the time now with the release of the Church's 'yep we were racists essays.' Translation...we are moral cowards that used God and fake scriptures and doctrine to justify our racism.

BY will always be known a charismatic leader, a racist, a polygamist, a possible accessory to several murders, a narcissist, etc...



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2015 07:28AM by DWaters.

Another contemporary of old Brigham, nationally famous:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Ingersoll

The differences between them could not be more stark.