Cottonwood Heights • Few Latter-day Saints have felt a more profound or personal loss from the death of LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson than black Mormons — and their extraordinary organization, the Genesis Group.
After all, Monson was one of three apostles (along with Gordon B. Hinckley and Boyd K. Packer) who huddled with three faithful black men (Ruffin Bridgeforth, Eugene Orr and Darius Gray) to establish Genesis on June 8, 1971.
Top officials in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints viewed the fledgling organization as a way to support black males who were barred from the Mormon priesthood and black females who were kept out of LDS temples.