ABSTRACT
The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has struggled throughout its existence to deal with tensions between races in the house of faith. Amy E. Robbins left a remarkable personal memoir about her experiences as a black woman in a church run by white males. The Reorganization never imposed official restrictions on black members, as did the Latter-day Saints under Brigham Young. Amy remained deeply and passionately committed to the Reorganized Church and to her congregation in Battle Creek. This positive record should receive its full value in Amy's spiritual life; but racism remained a persistent problem, even though it surfaced only occasionally over Amy Robbins's next forty years in the Church. A happily domestic woman, she reacted to the world on a personal level. No ideological reformer operating from intellectual premises, she defended herself and her children, as best she could, from the wrenching effects of racial prejudice in a Christian church.
