Jessie L. Embry sees black Latter-day Saints as individuals who are truly converted to their church. They have little but their individual spiritual experiences and an abiding faith to keep them in the pews, while many in their congregations are still ambivalent about their presence. They are pioneers; like Mormon frontier blazers who tamed the Great Basin wilderness, they pave the way for others to follow. An African American convert is generally the first Mormon in his or her family, the first black in an all-white congregation, and the first person of color to hold a position in their ward.

What is their experience in the LDS church? Answers come from oral history interviews and mailed surveys. Not surprisingly, many tell of discrimination, both subtle and overt. Yet Embry sees signs that stereotypes are disappearing and that differences are beginning to be appreciated. Instead of molding ethnic diversity to prescribed norms, Embry recommends that white Mormons "see what ethnicity can add to their church."

Jessie L. Embry is the director of the Oral History Program at the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies and an instructor of history at Brigham Young University. She is the author of Black Saints in a White Church: Contemporary African American Mormons, "In His Own Language": Mormon Spanish Speaking Congregations in the United States, and Mormon Polygamous Families: Life in the Principle, and is co-author of After 150 Years: Latter-day Saints in Sesquicentennial Perspective and Hearts Turned to the Fathers: A History of the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1894-1994.