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Producer/Directors Darius Gray and Margaret Young
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Few people are aware that there has been an African American presence in the LDS Church from its earliest days, that the vanguard company of Mormon pioneers included three "colored servants" (slaves), at least one of whom was a baptized Mormon, and that both enslaved and freeborn converts of African descent participated in the Mormon migration.

Airing on KUED-Channel 7 Wednesday, October 7 at 9 p.m., Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons reveals that legacy, and confronts the issues which surfaced during the most turbulent years of the Civil Rights Movement, when the LDS Church maintained its policy of restricting priesthood from those of African descent, and protesters appeared at every sports event, including those at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. It discusses the priesthood restriction -- how it came to be and how it was ultimately lifted -- and presents the lives and challenges of modern Black Mormon pioneers.

Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons, a documentary about African American Latter-day Saints, was written and directed by Margaret Young and Darius Gray, both of whom have written and lectured extensively about Blacks in the west.

Besides never-released footage shot in 1968 and many rare archival photographs and journal entries, the documentary includes interviews with renowned scholars, historians, black Mormons and former Mormons, with Martin Luther King III, and with Dr. Cecil "Chip" Murray, retired pastor of the First AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church of Los Angeles, which was founded by a former slave of Mormon pioneers.

The airing of the documentary coincides with the 40th anniversary of the protest by 14 Black Wyoming football players against the then policy of the LDS Church to deny priesthood to those of African descent. The protest of this group was in conjunction with other similar protests by athletic teams around the Western Athletic Conference (WAC).

On Thursday, October 16, 1969, following football practice, Joe Williams, a Black tri-captain, contacted Wyoming Head Coach Lloyd Eaton and informed him that the Black football players planned to wear black armbands during the football game scheduled to be played in Laramie, between Wyoming and Brigham Young University that Saturday. Coach Eaton notified the 14 that they were no longer members of the football squad. The media tabbed the incident as the "Black 14." It resulted in prolonged litigation known as Williams v. Eaton. The incident and case received extensive national and international attention.

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