Tope Folarin and the demographics of Utah

Tope Folarin is an award winning author and Rhodes scholar, who garnered his acclaim for his book entitled A Particular Kind of Black Man. In the novel based around his life, Folarin describes the unique experience of growing up as a first generation American with Nigerian Immigrant parents. That itself would be a good basis for a book, however the twist is that Folarin grew up on Ogden Utah, with his family being the only black family in the town. Here in the article Folarin discusses an often overlooked segment of the immigrant population, black immigrants, in this case African immigrants.

Utah is an outlier state demographically, that has somehow maintained its homogeneity, staying at 90% white even in 2019. It is that homogeneity that caused many "awkward" or downright troubling incidents in Folarins life. He details how one child tried to "rub the brown off of his skin, until the child cried because he couldn't" or the time a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints, told Folarin that "if he was virtuous on Earth, he could be her servant in heaven." All pointing to the fact that Folarin was likely the first black person they had seen in real life, or at all. James Baldwin wrote about this phenomenon during his travels of Europe. At the heart of his point was the fact that it is an experience that almost white people will never experience. Now 50+ years later, in America, African migrants are experiencing the same phenomenon. Which begs the question how and why did African Americans almost entirely avoid Utah during the Great Migration? 

To answer this question we do not have to look farther than who founded Utah, and who its primary inhabitants are. Utah since its founding, has served as a gigantic enclave for the almost entirely white Church of Latter Day Saints.  A religion that from 1849 to 1978, officially prohibited men of black African descent from being ordained to the priesthood. This is particularly discriminatory, since the LDS has a policy of "lay priesthood" meaning any male member can be ordained. Essentially barring African Americans-and black Africans from joining. So in truth Utah was established as a quasi-white only state, since business, politics and social affairs were all built around the Church. Any black person would be condemned to a second class life.

However Folarins story can be seen as one of breaking down barriers as he explains later in the interview. Many LDS members who were teachers, and coaches took him under their wing, and helped him on his way to becoming a Rhodes Scholar. Many of whom admitted that he and his family were the first black people they had met. This kind of slow integration/education combined with the small amount of Latin X and Pacific Islander migration is slowly changing, at least the citizens of Utah exposure to non white cultures.