President Russell M. Nelson will receive Gandhi-King-Mandela Peace Prize

Prize from Morehouse College honors Latter-day Saint leader for promoting ‘positive social transformation through nonviolent means’

By Tad Walch

After years of joining arms with Black leaders to call for greater racial and ethnic harmony, President Russell M. Nelson will receive the first Gandhi-King-Mandela Peace Prize next month from Morehouse College, a historically Black school in Atlanta.

The prize is awarded to “a person who promotes positive social transformation through nonviolent means. The individuals use their global leadership to affirm peace, justice, diversity and pluralism,” according to Morehouse.

“We wanted to identify Russell M. Nelson and link his name with these three giants,” said the Rev. Lawrence Carter, dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse.

The King chapel board of directors made the selection, and the Rev. Carter said President Nelson has exhibited courage and unifying leadership.

“President Nelson is, I believe, a role model for how Christians need to get out of three boxes — the race box, the nationality box and the culture box — to unite the human family,” the Rev. Carter said. “With the power of his prophetic, revelational vision, he looked out across great troubles in this country and saw the chance to form an alliance,” he said of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the NAACP. 

President Nelson has locked arms with NAACP leaders since a landmark news conference in May 2018, when they jointly called for an end to prejudice from a lobby at the headquarters of the Church in Salt Lake City. The call came just months after the beginning of President Nelson’s administration as Church president.

President Nelson also has implored Church members directly to be examples of abandoning prejudice.

“I grieve that our Black brothers and sisters the world over are enduring the pains of racism and prejudice,” he said during an international general conference of the Church in 2020. “Today, I call upon our members everywhere to lead out in abandoning attitudes and actions of prejudice. I plead with you to promote respect for all of God’s children.”

Read more at Deseret.com