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The first episode of a new video series plainly states one of its provocative missions: Prove that Brigham Young wasn’t part of a conspiracy to kill Joseph Smith.
That ahistorical claim was getting too much traction online, some Latter-day Saints historians decided. They are responding with a series of historically sound, but engaging, minidocumentaries titled “Becoming Brigham.”
The first 12-minute episode, “Who Killed Joseph Smith,” is online now.
Here’s what you need to know:
The project is ambitious. More than 40 episodes have been filmed.
Episodes will be released weekly. Look for a new one to drop each Monday.
You can find them on YouTube. To see it there, click here, or go to BecomingBrigham.com.
The series is rooted in scholarship. The list of contributors includes historians trusted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Here are some of the key contributors:
Ronald Esplin was the managing editor of the Joseph Smith Papers project when this was written and the former director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History at Brigham Young University.
Reid L. Neilson is BYU’s assistant academic vice president for religious scholarly publications. He took that role at the end of his service as president of the Washington D.C. North Mission. Prior to that, he was an assistant church historian.
Lisa Olsen Tait, a longtime member of the Church History Department, was an adjunct professor of church history and doctrine at BYU when Becoming Brigham was written. She recently completed a Ph.D. with a dissertation on Susa Young Gates.
Gerrit Dirkmaat is an associate professor of church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University. He previously worked as a historian in the Church History Department.
The impressive list goes on and on, and includes, Thomas G. Alexander, James B. Allen, Susan Easton Black, LaJean Carruth, Matt Godfrey, Casey Griffiths, Brittany Nash and Brent Rogers.
“I do think that Brigham Young fundamentally at the core of his soul wanted people to flourish,” Tait said in a news release, “… and the way that would happen was by embracing the gospel of Jesus Christ.… I kind of like Brigham Young, actually. I think he’s very down-to-earth. I think he’s very human.”
If you haven’t heard the whoppers being told online, you’ll be stunned by the wild story of a conspiracy. Interpreter Foundation president Daniel Peterson says the series is intended to share the true character of Brigham Young, who succeeded Joseph Smith as church president and prophet.
Each episode debunks fictions and caricatures of “Brother Brigham,” also known as the American Moses.
The first episode introduces Peterson and the series hosts, John Wilson, who played Brigham Young in “Six Days in August,” and Camrey Fox, who played Emma Smith in the same film.
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What I’m reading
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Latter-day Saint, asked Utahns to pray for water miracle for the Great Salt Lake ahead of the 2034 Olympics.
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My colleague Amy Ortiz served as a visitors’ center missionary, and she shares why she was first shocked and then hopeful when she learned the church will discontinue the Salt Lake Temple Square Mission this summer.
Behind the Scenes
While I researched this newsletter, I returned to a story I wrote in 2005 about the donation of what many thought was a long-lost daguerreotype of Brigham Young. That sent me on a search for other photographs of the second church prophet and president.
