Quincy D. Newell’s new book Your Sister in the Gospel: The Life of Jane Manning James, A Nineteenth-Century Black Mormon is a unique and valuable addition to the fields of both Mormon Studies and nineteenth-century American History.
As Newell points out in her introduction, Jane Manning James’s story is “important because it troubles the waters” and “expands our understanding of nineteenth-century African American history beyond the standard narratives.”[1] That story is not as well-known as it should have been, and has been neglected by many scholars, perhaps, as Newell speculates, because Jane’s “membership in the LDS Church leads many scholars to see her as a dupe or a victim.”[2] Her narrative seems to move in a separate direction than many of the others. Instead of moving from “slavery to freedom”, Jane goes from being born free into a church that “treats her as a second-class citizen.”[3]
Matthew McBride is the web content manager for the Church History Department and a graduate student in American history at the University of Utah. He is the author of A House for the Most High: The Story of the Original Nauvoo Temple and coeditor of Revelations in Context: The Stories behind the Sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. Matthew has also published in the Ensign and the Journal of Mormon History. He lives in American Fork, Utah, with his wife Mary and their four children.
Richard Lloyd Anderson (1926-2018) was a Professor Emeritus of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, and senior research fellow at the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History at Brigham Young University. More information about him can be found 
