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Next year it will be only forty years since the priesthood ban was lifted. I know Americans will think this is ancient history but in historical terms, it is not actually that long ago. We could say perhaps it was a couple of generations ago… I remember hearing news of the revelation in 1978. I was about 10 years old I think, and I didn’t know any black people. (I grew up in Utah and New Hampshire, two of the whitest states in the Union.) I thought “I didn’t know blacks couldn’t hold the priesthood!” It was absolute news to me. GT, where did you grow up in NH? I grew up there as well; we moved there in 1998. SamBee… it is ancient history.
I live there between 1978 to 1982. That makes me feel old now gospeltangents wrote:
I live there between 1978 to 1982. That makes me feel old now
That makes you feel old because you are old. Those were my high school years. So I am old also.dande48 wrote:
GT, where did you grow up in NH? I grew up there as well; we moved there in 1998.SamBee… it is ancient history.
Not really, it”s in my lifetime and I’m in early middle age. We might be past it but while it is still well within in living memory it *isn’t* ancient history.
Remember when Disney first released “The Little Mermaid”? Or when the Berlin Wall fell? I don’t. I was still chillin’ in the womb.
dande48 wrote:
Remember when Disney first released “The Little Mermaid”? Or when the Berlin Wall fell?I don’t. I was still chillin’ in the womb.
Quite a few people do. Millions in fact. (Billions are around who were alive back then) I’ve no idea when Disney released that film personally, because I’ve always found the majority of their cartoons creepy… anyway…
Americans tend to have a very short view of time and it hasn’t helped them with their foreign relations.
Since the Berlin Wall fell, a lot has happened, but we’re still dealing with the consequences. There is still a divide in Europe which is not completely gone, China is still scared of this kind of thing happening to them… but anyone in their mid thirties will potentially be able to remember it happening. Given that it is not uncommon to reach one’s eighties now, that’s a lot of people. The Berlin Wall – let’s say it made a bigger impression than Disney – particularly when the Soviets could have pressed the button or invaded. They had troops in East Berlin remember.
In the case of 1978, you’d have to be in your forties and over. I don’t remember it, because the LDS is barely newsworthy over here and I’d never even heard of Mormons back then! However I’m sure some people several years older than me *can* remember it, if it was personally relevant.
World War 2 is passing out of memory, but there are still some very old folk kicking around that one sees at commemorations etc. 1978 though – middle aged folk will remember that too and a lot of them are still around… of working age indeed. Probably your own parents.
To put it in perspective, a person in their 80’s might remember the iron curtain being BUILT. But in general 80 year-olds are not on this site. I was a teenager at the time. I didn’t know anyone who was black. Things have changed a lot for me since then.
Seniors in high school can’t remember September 11. I can’t remember Apollo 11. Time marches on. We lose a connection to things that happened before us and they become somehow less in our consciousness, no matter how major they were. But on the flipside, there are still parts of the Vietnamese jungle which are barely regrowing, American men with bits blown off and PTSD from back then and children born with defects because Agent Orange hasn’t had time to leach out of the ground. Not to mention Vietnamese who were put in prison camps. There may not be too many Holocaust survivors left, but there are still a few from the Siberian camps.
And Irish Troubles are still not completely over as I found on a recent visit.
Things change, but rarely overnight. The Berlin Wall disappeared in the glint of an eye – the west and east are still fighting over the carcass of the Soviet Union as with the war in the Ukraine.
US Civil War veterans lived into the WWII period… and I’m sure from a Mormon perspective veterans of official polygamy were still on the go at that point in time. It’s a sobering thought that despite many improvements, we still have many people in our church leadership who were adult members in the 70s, and a certain percentage of members will remember old school temple ceremonies.
http://shouldertothewheel.org/ Quote:On June 8, 1978, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ended the restriction of Black Mormons from priesthood ordination and temple ordinances. June 8, 2018 will mark the fortieth anniversary of this date. As we look forward to and prepare for this milestone, we as LDS people invite our brothers and sisters to join us in reflection on how far we have come and what work we must yet do to understand and love one another and become a Zion people.
We pledge to prepare for the 40th anniversary by taking one or more of the following actions by June 8, 2018 and invite you to join us:
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