Stacey Harkey From Studio C's Original Cast | Ep. 1795

Being Black in the LDS Church: Stacey Harkey's Candid Conversation on Race, Faith, and Studio C

When Stacey Harkey, one of the founding cast members of the wildly popular BYU sketch comedy show Studio C, sat down with the Mormon Stories Podcast in July 2023, he brought a perspective rarely heard in mainstream Mormon discourse: what it means to navigate the LDS Church as a Black American from a place of genuine acceptance rather than crisis. His interview reveals uncomfortable historical truths about how the Church has handled race, and the particular silence that surrounds those teachings when minorities are present.

The conversation between Harkey and host John Dehlin offers more than entertainment gossip about a beloved comedy troupe. It provides a window into how institutional doctrine, social pressure, and personal agency intersect within Mormonism, especially for those whose lived experience sits at the intersection of multiple identities.

The Historical Record on Race in LDS Doctrine

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints maintained an official policy denying priesthood and temple blessings to members of African descent until 1978. This was not a peripheral belief but rather a central theological claim, justified through interpretations of the curse of Cain and other scriptural readings that have since been repudiated by the Church itself.

What Harkey describes in the Mormon Stories episode is how this doctrine operated in practice: through institutional silence and social avoidance rather than explicit preaching. When asked whether he encountered these teachings in seminary or early Church education, Harkey explained that the subject was treated as a "minefield." No one taught it directly from the pulpit, yet its presence lingered in the culture.