"Dear Brother," Jane Manning James wrote to Joseph F. Smith in 1903, "I take this opportunity of writing to ask you if I can get my endowments and also finish the work I have begun for my dead.... Your sister in the Gospel, Jane E. James." A faithful Latter-day Saint since her conversion sixty years earlier, James had made this request several times before, to no avail, and this time she would be just as unsuccessful, even though most Latter-day Saints were allowed to participate in the endowment ritual in the temple as a matter of course. James, unlike most Mormons, was black. For that reason, she was barred from performing the temple rituals that Latter-day Saints believe are necessary to reach the highest degrees of glory after death. A free black woman from Connecticut, James positioned herself at the center of LDS history with uncanny precision. After her conversion, she traveled with her family and other converts from the region to Nauvoo, Illinois, where the LDS church was then based. There, she took a job as a servant in the home of Joseph Smith, the founder and first prophet of the LDS church. When Smith was killed in 1844, Jane found employment as a servant in Brigham Young's home. These positions placed Jane in proximity to Mormonism's most powerful figures, but did not protect her from the church's racially discriminatory policies. Nevertheless, she remained a faithful member until her death in 1908. Your Sister in the Gospel is the first scholarly biography of Jane Manning James or, for that matter, any black Mormon. Quincy D. Newell chronicles the life of this remarkable yet largely unknown figure and reveals why James's story changes our understanding of American history.

About the Author
Quincy D. Newell is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Hamilton College. She has published several books and essays on the experiences of religious and racial/ethnic minorities in the American West. Among other honors, Newell received the 2018 Jane Dempsey Douglass Prize from the American Society of Church History and the 2017 Best Article in Mormon Women's History prize from the Mormon History Association for her work on Jane James.

Reviews
Bound to engage both scholarly and non-specialist audiences, Your Sister in the Gospel would be an especially useful text in undergraduate classrooms, given that Newell's appendix includes five of her key primary sources for readers to investigate for themselves. * Melena Laudig, Journal of Ecclesiastical History *
Quincy D. Newell puts a human face to the priesthood and temple ban of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in her seminal study of Jane Manning James, a black Latter-day Saint.... Newell's work is a wonderful reminder of what can be accomplished with limited sources. But, more importantly, she provides a model of how to write about the lived religion of marginalized voices and how to include them into our narratives, whether it be that of a black Mormon woman like Jane Manning James or marginalized voices in other faith traditions. For this effort, and more, we are in her debt. Newell has done historians of Mormonism and Religious Studies a great service. * Matthew L. Harris, Church History *
Your Sister in the Gospel is a must-read ... The book is free of jargon, which makes it accessible to a wide readership, without sacrificing quality or buying into easy conclusions. * Carter Charles, BYU Studies Quarterly *


Awards
Winner of Winner of the Best Biography Book Award from the Mormon History Association.



Book Information
ISBN 9780199338665
Author Quincy D. Newell
Format Hardback
Page Count 220
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 476g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 157mm * 23mm