The Transcendent Immanent Temple

Smith culminated his metaphysics of translation in the rites of the Nauvoo temple in the early 1840s. The temple rites were a striking combination of Smith’s targums, the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, Freemasonry, ancient mystery religions, and his sense about the connections of humans and texts. This liturgy was Smith’s final rereading of the Hebrew Bible’s primeval history, and it pulled his followers to Eden and thence to heaven as transformed, divine beings. These rites were an apotheosis not just of Smith’s followers but also of his metaphysics of translation. In the temple, Smith worked to define space and time in terms of human beings. In an echo of Hebrew genealogies, Smith measured time in parental bonds effected by a force he called priesthood. These bonds at the base of time tied God to humanity and humans to each other.

The Black Mother/Wife

This chapter focuses on plays written by Georgia Douglas Johnson in the late 1920s as she hosted a literary salon in her Washington, D.C., home. These texts present the black mother/wife, whose existence is shaped by attempts to delay death. In Blue Blood, she prevents the murder of the men in her family by hiding the fact that she has been raped by a powerful white man. In Safe, she becomes desperate to avoid what she believes to be the inevitable fate of her newborn son: humiliating death at the hands of a mob. In Blue-Eyed Black Boy, she protects her adult son, but ultimately her success in stopping the mob underscores her family's vulnerability. In short, Johnson shows that the black mother/wife must forge romantic and parental bonds in a society that allows white men to rape black women and kill black men with impunity.