Richard and Joan Ostling point to the church's practice, continued until 1978, of refusing the priesthood to blacks as evidence that past LDS Church policies were racist in nature.
Richard Abanes contends that the church tries to hide past racial practices, citing the 1981 change in the Book of Mormon, which stated that the Lamanites had become "a white and a delightsome people" to "a pure and a delightsome people" (2 Nephi 30:6) [REF].