Mormons Pick 1st Black for Top Post
Mormon Elder Helvecio Martins, 59, of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has become the first black named to the hierarchy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Martins was converted and baptized a member in 1972, six years before the church lifted the ban that barred blacks from the Mormon priesthood and certain other religious privileges. The businessman was one of 10 men named last weekend in Salt Lake City to the Second Quorum of the Seventy, giving him the status of a “general authority” in the church hierarchy.
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