Documentary chronicles black Mormons

MURRAY, Utah — Elijah Abel, Jane Manning James and Green Flake

hold a unique, but rather obscure place in Mormon history: all three

joined the church in its infancy and all three were black.They also remained faithful after policies were altered and blacks

were denied priesthood blessings in The Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-day Saints.Abel was the first black man ordained to the priesthood in 1836.

James worked in the home of church founder Joseph Smith and followed

the faith's next president, Brigham Young, across the Plains to Utah in

1848. Flake came to Utah as well, but as the slave of white members. He

was freed by Young in 1854.Such stories won't remain unknown if Darius Gray and Margaret Young

have anything to do with it. They've chronicled the struggles of black

Latter-day Saints in a new documentary, "Nobody Knows: The Untold Story

of Black Mormons.""To me it's parallel with the story of African Americans, period,"

said Gray, who is black and has been a member of the church since 1964.

"We talk about the black history and contributions being either lost,

stolen or strayed generally, and it's the same within the LDS church."Nearly six years in the making, the film is an extension of a longtime

partnership between Gray, a former broadcaster, and Young, a writing

teacher at the church-owned Brigham Young University. Together the pair

have written three books on black Mormons.Wrapped in soulful black spirituals, the 72-minute film takes viewers

on a journey from the days of Mormon pioneers to the 1960s Civil Rights

era, when some university athletic teams refused to compete against BYU

because the church openly discriminated against blacks. It ends with