
This Official Declaration, fashioned after the LDS 1890 Manifesto, signed by Ross W. LeBaron and Robert Eaby, presented a unique response in Mormondom to the new civil rights legislation. They found in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed by president Lyndon B. Johnson, the basis to nullify the Mormon Official Declaration 1.
Transcription
OFFICIAL DECLARATION
Manifesto
To Whom It May Concern: The following was sustained….
Inasmuch as a Civil Right’s Law has been enacted by Congress, forbidding discrimination against race, creed or color: which Law has been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort: I hereby declare, that the Mormon Manifesto of Oct. 6, 1890, has been made null and void by said Civil Right’s Act of Congress, signed July 2, 1964.
And that the worthy Saints, by said Act of Congress, have had restored to them their former right’s and privileges, in relation to the Church and Kingdom of God, that were practiced by them before the various discriminatory laws were enacted against them and their religion.
I also declare, that the said Civil Right’s Act of July 2, 1964 was signed at the end of the 120 year period from the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, June 27, 1844.Continue reading “Ross LeBaron and Robert Eaby: Declaration on Civil Rights and Plural Marriage, 1967”