In 1844, Joseph Smith ran for president. Mayor of Nauvoo, IL and leader of a church nearly 20,000 strong, he actively campaigned for 4 months before his assassination in Carthage. But who was Joseph Smith and why was he running for president? What were his political, social, and economic motivations for seeking the highest appointment in the U.S? Most importantly for our research topic, what did Joseph and his followers think about race and religion in this pre-Civil War context?
I’m Casey! Welcome to Imagining Religion where I give you a rundown of religious histories, their theological innovations, and analyze their political impact. Today, we are lookinag at how race was thought about, debated, and defined by Smith and his followers leading up to his presidential campaign and decide whether those debates influenced his platform. All of this to answer one deceptively simple question: How did Latter-Day Saints co-construct theories of race and religion using theology and politics?
