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Edmon Washington
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A ward of the court starting in infancy, Edmon Washington grew up testing all sorts of baptismal waters. Catholic, Episcopalian, Pentecostal, Baptist - given his long list of guardians, he'd been them all.
    At 16, the then-Bronx, N.Y., resident made his own spiritual choice. He received and read the Book of Mormon and soon after, missionaries came knocking. It wasn't long before he was baptized.
    "I didn't see any reason not to do it, so I became a member," Washington, 27, said by phone from New York City.
    He finished high school early and headed off to BYU in Provo, which he'd been led to believe "was heaven on Earth."
    But paradise turned out to
         
Five vignettes
     
         
    Black Latter-day Saints say they have grown accustomed to defending their faith to other blacks, but they will never understand why they still must defend their race to other Mormons. Racism is alive, they say, in their congregations and in quasi-official publications and folklore the church will not repudiate. Most, however, are unwavering in their beliefs, even as they long for broader acceptance and implore LDS leaders to face the church's racist history.               
be prickly. Nine years after joining the LDS Church, he walked away.
    As a convert, Washington wanted to learn all he could. The more he read, the more he began to question. No one had told him about that long-standing ban on blacks in the priesthood. He combed through Joseph Smith's journals. He read about how Smith ordained Elijah Abel, a black man, and projected that women someday would be allowed in the priesthood. Washington said he saw hypocrisy and asked questions, which people didn't like, "even so-called professors and intellectuals."
    When he said he wasn't interested in going on a mission, he felt condemned.
    "I began hating myself, thinking there was something
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wrong with me," he said.
    "I started losing faith in God. . . . It was only later in my life that I realized this didn't have anything to do with God."
    He left BYU after two years, overwhelmed with depression. Two years later he enrolled at Utah Valley State College. He was still in the church, trying to make his way.
    But Washington never found comfort and tired of the fear of what would happen if he didn't follow the rules or fit in. He dug deep to find the God he missed.
    "I'm a firm believer in grace - the unmerited favor of God," he said. "The God I know, he's all love, all peace, all unity."
    His journey in, and out, of the LDS Church made him stronger. "I found the truth," he said. "And the truth will set you free."
    - Jessica Ravitz