160 years ago today - May 29, 1857

Brigham Young upbraids members of the pioneer party on route to Utah, "I have let the brethren dance, and fiddle, and act the nigger night after night to see what they will do, and what extremes they would go to, if suffered to go as they would but I don't love to see it. . . . Joking, nonsense, profane language, trifling conversation and loud laughter do not belong to us . . . Here are the Elders of Israel who have the priesthood, who have got to preach the gospel, who have to gather the nations of the earth, who have to build up the Kingdom, so that the nations can come to it, they will stoop to dance as niggers. I don't mean this as debasing the negroes, by any means; . . ." Wilford Woodruff adds that he advises "all the Brethren who have got Cards to burn them up Also Checkers & dominoes. For if you keep your Covenants you have made you will have no time to use them & they will be useless lumber on your hands. If you keep them for your children they will ownly prove a curse to them."