Reply #100: Incorrect. They believed that blacks were the descendants of Cain.

[Xithras]

The Bible says that the descendants of Cain were marked, and the Mormons believed that black skin was the "mark". They didn't believe they weren't human, but they did believe that they were born cursed (note that Mormons believe that even cursed people can be saved, so being black didn't mean you couldn't get to heaven, it just meant you had to try a little harder). The racism in the Mormon church came from the people running it, not their scriptures.

Just a point, but Joseph Smith himself was anti-slavery, and said many times that blacks could be equals with whites if whites would let them be. There's also the story about Joseph Smiths stint as a mayor of a town in Ill. In one instance, a black man had been caught stealing from a white man, who had beaten him in return. He gave the black man a small fine, and had the white man imprisoned for the assault...outraging people at the time. In another story, a black man was arrested for selling alcohol on Sundays. The man explained that he had broken the law because he was trying to raise money to buy his daughter out of slavery. Smith fined him as the law required, but gave the man his personal horse to sell and not only pay his fine, but buy his daughter out of bondage.

The later church may have been infested with racists, but it wasn't founded that way. Oh, and I'm not Mormon...I'm Catholic :)