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alternatehistory.com
So I've been reading a biography of Elijah Abel/Ables, (Black Mormon: The Story of Elijah Ables by Russell Stevenson, a very good book), and I was thinking of writing a TL in which the frankly racist ban on black male Mormons holding the priesthood never comes about. From what I've read from Stevenson and others, it wasn't completely unavoidable, and Elijah Abel/Ables (his name was spelled both was, I prefer Abel) was ordained as a priest by Joseph Smith himself.
Stevenson whitewashes the leaders a bit and portrays the Mormon community as a whole being racist (and the surrounding anti-Mormon community of being even more racist and persecuting Mormons based on that) and the leaders going along with the LDS community unless they had a personal relationship with Elijah Abel, but otherwise he makes fairly good points. Here's a good essay from another author on Elijah Abels and black Mormons.
One PoD that I think could delay or avoid the priesthood ban would be to have William McCary, another black Mormon priest, avoid the Utah Mormons or simply not be a Mormon in the first place. Mormons were scared of interracial marriage just as everyone else was back then, and compounding that was McCary's insistence on being in unauthorized polygamous marriages, and claiming to receive visions and prophecies, something only a prophet (and at that point, only Joseph Smith) could do.
Before this, Elijah Abel freaked out many Mormons for being a black priesthood holder, but was well regarded by Joseph Smith and a few others. He was certainly regarded better than McCary, and Abel was a friend of Brigham Young even after Young spouted all the racist stuff he said. In fact, Stevenson says that Young praised Abel only a month before he gave a pro-slavery speech.
So my (long-winded and stream-of-though) question is, could we avoid some of the racism in early LDS thought? Could black Mormon men continue to be ordained to the priesthood?