Black Bishops in the United States

[RobinFinderson]

This came up in a different thread, and I wanted to post this question in the form of a poll:

Do you know of any Black bishops or stake presidents who served in those leadership positions over primarily white congregations here in the United States?

If so, please kindly share where you experienced this. In my 30+ years in the LDS church, I never met a black bishop or SP who was assigned to lead over a white congregation.

While you are welcome to share stories of black leaders in counselor positions, please use Bishop and SP as the basis of your answer.

[Indy Coug]

There was a Ghanaian 1st counselor in the bishopric of a ward I was in in England that

1. The ward was 90% white
2. He joined the church in 1975 -- 3 years before blacks could get the priesthood


I wasn't around long enough to see if he got "promoted" or not.

[woot]

The bishop of Scarborough, ON in the early aughts was black. The ward was mostly white. A big deal was made of it frequently.

[Mormon Red Death]

The bishop of Scarborough, ON in the early aughts was black. The ward was mostly white. A big deal was made of it frequently.

Did you ever meet the bishop who served before him? Now that guy was piece of work!

[marsupial]

No, only a black bishopric member.

[Surfah]

Yes. We had/have one here in our stake.

[RobinFinderson]

Yes. We had/have one here in our stake.

Cool. If you don't mind, care to share where this is?

[Tim]

This came up in a different thread, and I wanted to post this question in the form of a poll:

Do you know of any Black bishops or stake presidents who served in those leadership positions over primarily white congregations here in the United States?

If so, please kindly share where you experienced this. In my 30+ years in the LDS church, I never met a black bishop or SP who was assigned to lead over a white congregation.

While you are welcome to share stories of black leaders in counselor positions, please use Bishop and SP as the basis of your answer.

The current bishop of the Cary 2nd Ward in Cary, North Carolina is Bishop Counsell.

[Surfah]

Cool. If you don't mind, care to share where this is?

Fredericksburg, VA. Not my ward. But same stake and he's bishop of a ward that shares our building. We have a handful of black members. But the majority are white. Probably 90-95% white.

[tooblue]

The bishop of Scarborough, ON in the early aughts was black. The ward was mostly white. A big deal was made of it frequently.

I served as his counselor. He is in the Stake Presidency and has been for many years now. The current bishop there is of east Indian descent. The Ward is no longer predominantly white. There was another Bishop of my era who was from Africa in the Toronto Stake. His Ward was and still is predominantly white.

If you were ever in Scarborough Woot (on a mission I presume) you would've eaten dinner in my home or the home of my in-laws. Who was your mission President?

[tooblue]

Did you ever meet the bishop who served before him? Now that guy was piece of work!

Yah he is ... but not as much a piece of work as the guy who served after him

[falafel]

Robin, if I may ask, what is the point of this poll? Because to me it seems like another thinly-veiled attmept to prove one of your points against the Church, which I'm sure you'll re-cast as nothing more than a poll to satisfy your own innocent curiosity.

I think LA said it earlier, but what possible benefit could this anecdotal evidence serve? The best evidence for proving your (apparent) point would be the number of black bishops/stake presidents relative to the percentage of blacks in the congregations they serve. E.g. if there are 25% black members in a certain stake or region, are 25% of the bishops/stake presidents also black? But since we don't have any of that information, I don't see to what use this poll could possibly be put.

[Moliere]

This came up in a different thread, and I wanted to post this question in the form of a poll:

Do you know of any Black bishops or stake presidents who served in those leadership positions over primarily white congregations here in the United States?

I had to answer no because of this caveat. Not sure why it matters whether in the US or not. Also, it probably doesn't help that I've had a total of probably 10 black people in all my wards I've ever attended, not including my mission.

[RobinFinderson]

Robin, if I may ask, what is the point of this poll? Because to me it seems like another thinly-veiled attmept to prove one of your points against the Church, which I'm sure you'll re-cast as nothing more than a poll to satisfy your own innocent curiosity.

I think LA said it earlier, but what possible benefit could this anecdotal evidence serve? The best evidence for proving your (apparent) point would be the number of black bishops/stake presidents relative to the percentage of blacks in the congregations they serve. E.g. if there are 25% black members in a certain stake or region, are 25% of the bishops/stake presidents also black? But since we don't have any of that information, I don't see to what use this poll could possibly be put.

The main point of the poll is to find out if my own personal experience, having never known a single black bishop or SP presiding over a primarily white congregation in the US in 30+ years, was the common experience. So far it seems that my experience is common with most people (and I wonder how many of the 'yes' votes are people referring to the same leaders.)

The benefit is simply for folks to know if their own experience in this issue is typical. But lets not kid ourselves. Any church that had a history of institutional racism like the LDS church is going to continue to harbor some racism even after an event as remarkable as the proclamation. The church continues to exorcise its demons, and I'm confident that decent policy combined with the righteous desires of members' hearts will eventually result in an institution as free of racist people as any other institution on the planet. So that is the future, but what about the present? It is useful to take one's temperature from time to time, and maybe this poll does that.

Obviously a church with so few black members is not going to have an abundance of black leadership, but there ARE plenty of black leaders, as the anecdotal evidence provided here suggests. There are black high priests and black EQP and black counselors. In other words there is an decent pool of leaders who could be 'promoted' to executive leadership over a ward or stake, yet that mostly doesn't happen (which I can say based on the experiences people are sharing of having black leaders, but not black bishops and SPs).

So what are we to make of a situation where black leaders frequently get called as counselors and EQP and HP, but almost never serve as Bishops and SP's? That strikes me as suggestive of tokenism. (this is why I wanted to limit the poll to Bishops and SP's, so we could compare anecdotal stories of many black HP/EQP/Counselors to the lack of Bishops and SP).

I had to answer no because of this caveat. Not sure why it matters whether in the US or not. Also, it probably doesn't help that I've had a total of probably 10 black people in all my wards I've ever attended, not including my mission.

You know, that reflects my experience too. I've had about 10 black people in all my wards (Maybe more at BYU, but I never really knew my wards there). This is why the poll is useful, because while your ten might be insignificant, and my ten are insignificant, together they make 20, and that is starting to get significant. If each of us has 10 or so black people in our various wards (some will have significantly more, depending on their region), then all of a sudden we have enough of a pool of people to be significant, and then the fact that most people who have answered have not known a black leader presiding over a white ward or stake to be more suggestive that maybe this reflects some cultural trend out of order.

The US part of the poll is just to make the information a bit more specific. If we make the poll too broad we reduce its effectiveness to tell us something useful.

[dabrockster]

Yep. In northern Alabama no less...

I should add: His family was the only Black family in the Ward. He was a great guy. Not what you would call the elite for a Bishopric (From my experience most Bishops fit into a professional category, not trying to cause any fights here). Humble man who worked at the small local nursing home as head of janitor. Barely made enough to support his family and did not own a suit, but a sports coat.