Lucille Perkins Bankhead: A Faithful Black Latter-day Saint Woman, Civil-Rights Defender, and First Genesis Group Relief Society President (1902–1994)

Mary Lucille Perkins Bankhead (1902–1994), a lifelong resident of the Salt Lake Valley, was a descendant of the African-American Mormon pioneer Green Flake and was related through marriage to the Black Mormon pioneer Jane Manning James. In 1939, when a state representative pushed a law that would have forced Black Salt Lake City residents from their homes into a segregated 'black district,' Lucille and the ladies of her Camilla Art and Craft Club drove a horse and wagon up to the state legislature and sat there all day until they were heard—and the law failed to pass. When the Genesis Group, a support group for Black members, was formed in October 1971, Lucille was called as its first Relief Society president; she served her fellow Black Latter-day Saint women through the difficult years before the 1978 priesthood revelation. She said of those years, 'There is one verse in the Bible that the Lord is no respecter of persons and I've always believed that.' After the 1978 revelation, Lucille served as proxy for the temple endowment of her ancestor Jane Manning James. Her life is a powerful faith-promoting witness of a Latter-day Saint woman who, through decades of exclusion, would not let go of the Lord nor of His restored Church.

Fuller account of this event (in the witness’s own words):

Well, at that time, I belonged to the Camilla Art and Craft Club, and when several other women and I discussed this, we thought it was a ridiculous idea. We took the baby and we took a lunch and we took two or three of the women that belonged to Camilla Art Craft Club. And Mrs. Leggroan, the ladies from the Camilla Art Craft Club, and others, the law didn’t receive the votes it needed to pass and black Utahns were able to stay in their homes. If I don’t like what you’re doing, I think I’m right, I’m going to open my mouth. I’m going to talk about it. And somebody’s going to hear. And if they don’t like it, why that’s just too bad… I’m a woman, don’t make no difference what color my skin is. I bleed just like you do. And I’m going to say just what I want to say.