Member-only story
A Decade that Defined Me
And the Songs that Got Me Through
My childhood was spent traveling between that community and another about an hour drive away. I was born in 1977 in a small foothills community. A time that would define who I would become and the stories that I would tell.
I grew up in the Mormon Church, which made me strong and broke me all at the same time.
Throughout my childhood, I felt something was amiss about the Mormon Church. Again I want to make it clear that I do not have anything against those who are Mormon per-say, because to box all Mormons into
a neat little box would be wrong. But any religion that teaches children that the darker your skin the farther apart you are from God is certainly flawed.
From the mid 1800's to 1978, the Mormon Church barred Black men and women from participating in ordinances of its temples which the Mormon believed was necessary for its highest level of salvation. The Church went so far as to teach that those who were black would be made white after salvation. The racial restrictions were lifted by the top leaders in 1978. But it wasn’t until 2013 that the LDS Church disavowed these teachings for the first time.
Even as a Child something about the Church and the teachings was off. My Mother and Father were Mormon, my Father had grown up in the…
