President Russel M. Nelson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to receive the Ghandhi-King-Mandela Peace Prize | Eastern NC Now

Since 2001, the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, has honored notable world leaders like Nelson R. Mandela, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Coretta Scott King. But in its inaugural year, the King Chapel’s Gandhi-King-Mandela Peace Prize—named for Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela—will be given to President Russell M. Nelson in a ceremony at Morehouse College on April 13, 2023.  Nelson is the head of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon), based in Salt Lake, Utah.

According to a release published by Morehouse College, “The prize is awarded to a person who promotes peace and positive social transformation through nonviolent means. This individual uses their global leadership to affirm peace, justice, diversity, and pluralism.”

“Let us be clear,” said President Nelson. “We are brothers and sisters, each of us the child of a loving Father in Heaven. His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, invites all to come unto Him—’black and white, bond and free, male and female,’ (2 Nephi 26:33). It behooves each of us to do whatever we can in our spheres of influence to preserve the dignity and respect every son and daughter of God deserves.”

The Rev. Lawrence Carter, dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse, told Church News, “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. 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 [with the NAACP].”

Throughout his five-year ministry as President of the Church, President Nelson has joined arms with Black leaders to call for greater racial harmony and urged Church members to be examples of abandoning prejudice. 

“Arm in arm and shoulder to shoulder, may we strive to lift our brothers and sisters everywhere, in every way we can,” President Nelson said at the 110th annual NAACP national convention in July 2019. “This world will never be the same.”

The local Beaufort County Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is located at:
80 Cedar Circle
Washington, NC 27889-8547