Blacks weren't allowed to pray in church

[_Drifting]

Here is an amusing (well, to me it was amusing) play on the OP title.

Blacks weren't allowed to pray in Church.
Blacks were allowed to pay in Church.

Both statements were factually correct during the same time span!

[_Willy Law]

From the ME site:

"The Opening prayer in Sacrament meeting and both prayers in Priesthood meeting used to require a priesthood holder. Other prayers did not."

I guess that makes sense. I know women were not allowed to say the opening prayer in Sacrament meeting.

[_just me]

What is JMJs full name? And what the heck? I would like to have a massage therapist sealed to me, but then again, it makes absolutely no sense. We won't be in need of clothes in theory as everything will be "perfect", so no need of servants...guess I won't be needing a massage...but what type of mindset would want to have a person sealed as a "servant?" Talk about equal opportunity insult to injury.

Jane Manning James

http://www.blacklds.org/manning

[_Rollo Tomasi]

Check the dates again.... It's only a specific date period that Women did not pray in Sacrament. What was it, something like 1940's to 1960's?

Here is period during which women were forbidden from offering a prayer in Sacrament Meeting: from July 1967 until September 1978.

[_moksha]

If JMJ's sealing to Walker Lewis was not as a 'wife', just as a 'servant', but the relationship nevertheless allows for connubial bliss, what differentiates a sealed servant from a sealed wife?

Joseph F. Smith kneeled in as proxy for Joseph Smith during the ceremony in which Jane was sealed to Joseph Smith as a servant. Walker Lewis was the man she actually wanted to be sealed to as a wife. My guess is this exceptional action was the only time someone had been sealed as a servant. It was no doubt in recognition for her great devotion and service to the Church, tempered by hateful notions that members of her race were cursed.

[_Quasimodo]

Joseph F. Smith kneeled in as proxy for Joseph Smith during the ceremony in which Jane was sealed to Joseph Smith as a servant. Walker Lewis was the man she actually wanted to be sealed to as a wife. My guess is this exceptional action was the only time someone had been sealed as a servant. It was no doubt in recognition for her great devotion and service to the Church, tempered by hateful notions that members of her race were cursed.

After doing a little reading, it sounds like Jane was eventually none too happy about being sealed as a servant and petitioned to be sealed as a child in the Smith family. No luck. Too dark to be a Smith, I guess. Best not to get too uppity.

Have you seen the movie "The Help"?