Elijah Abel: The First Black Elder and Seventy, Ordained by Joseph Smith (1832–1884)

Elijah Abel (1808–1884) was one of the earliest African-American members of the Church and its first Black elder and Seventy. He was baptized in Cincinnati, Ohio, in September 1832 by Elder Ezekiel Roberts and soon moved to Kirtland, Ohio, to join the Saints. On January 25, 1836, the Prophet Joseph Smith declared that Abel was 'entitled to the priesthood and all the blessings,' and he was ordained an elder; he was later set apart to the Third Quorum of the Seventy on December 20, 1836. Abel helped build the Kirtland Temple and participated in the spiritual outpouring that accompanied its dedication. Though later denied his temple endowment under the Church's priesthood restrictions, he was never released from the priesthood and served three full-time missions, the last to Cincinnati, where he died on December 25, 1884, in full faith.

Recording note: No verbatim first-person account of Abel's conversion or ordination survives in public archival sources. His life is documented through Church records, his Deseret News obituary, and biography — W. Kesler Jackson's 'Elijah Abel: The Life and Times of a Black Priesthood Holder' and the Century of Black Mormons exhibit at the University of Utah. The most personal documentary record of his ordination season is his 1836 patriarchal blessing, in which Patriarch Joseph Smith Sr. declared that Abel would 'be made equal to thy brethren' and that his 'soul shall be white in eternity' — preserved in Church archives and quoted in the BYU Studies review of Jackson's biography.

Fuller account of this event (as retold in Able, Elijah · Century of Black Mormons · J. Willard Marriott Library Exhibits):

Bro Elijah Abel gave an outline of his history and experience during a period of forty years. Of his being in Kirtland. Of his appointment an[d] ordination as a Seventy, and a member of the 3 rd Quorum. Of his opportunities and conversations with the Patriarch Father Joseph Smith while watching at his bedside during his last sickness. He related one of the themes on which he dwelt at that time and predicted that the saints would go into the wilderness. Br Abel related many other items of interest.