New Church Documentary Shows Students' Growth as Racial Harmony Ambassado

Twenty-four American students, accompanied by leaders from the NAACP and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, pose as a group during a 10-day Amos C. Brown Fellowship to Ghana from December 28, 2024, through January 7, 2025. Photo is a screenshot from the documentary. 2025 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has released a 40-minute documentary highlighting the experiences of 24 young Americans who spent 10 days in West Africa learning to become ambassadors of racial harmony as part of the Amos C. Brown Fellowship to Ghana.

The fully funded excursion from December 28, 2024, through January 7, 2025, and one in August 2022 are named after Reverend Dr. Amos C. Brown, pastor of San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church and member of the Board of Directors of the NAACP, and powered by the NAACP in collaboration with the Church of Jesus Christ.

The fellowship is a result of Church President Russell M. Nelson ’s pledge in June 2021 of $250,000 for initiatives between the two organizations that “represent an ongoing desire of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to teach and live the two great commandments — to love God and neighbor.”

Fellowship participants — American college students and graduates, young adults and seminarians ages 18-25 of various religious (including Latter-day Saint), cultural and racial backgrounds — were immersed in Ghanaian culture, learned about their ancestral heritage and the Atlantic Slave Trade, and worked toward becoming social justice leaders and agents of change across the United States.

“It is not my job to forgive those who did my ancestors wrong by putting them in those dungeons and in those horrible circumstances,” said fellow Mishon Poe, who was selected from a wide pool of applicants. “They need to seek forgiveness from my ancestors. But I have forgiveness, being I’m willing to move forward.”

Topic on Racial and Cultural Prejudice Race and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Counted among Reverend Brown’s friends is Church President Russell M. Nelson, who has repeatedly said racism cannot be tolerated. Of Reverend Brown, he stated in a Facebook post, “I like to think that my friend Amos and I are, in a very small way, the embodiment of Dr. [Martin Luther] King’s vision that people from different backgrounds and races can ‘sit down together at the table of brotherhood.’”

“You have prophets and apostles repeatedly talking, condemning racism, and calling us to repentance about it,” said Elder Ahmad S. Corbitt, a General Authority Seventy who participated in the experience.

“Unfortunately, we have too many persons who are what I consider to be enslaved to ignorance, misinformation, superstition,” said Reverend Brown, who accompanied the group to Ghana.

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President Russell M. Nelson greets the Reverend Dr. Amos C. Brown prior to a news conference with NAACP leadership in the Church Administration Building on Temple Square in Salt Lake City on June 14, 2021. 2025 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.

Other NAACP leaders accompanying students to Ghana were Rick Callender, president of the NAACP West Region; Devon Jerome Crawford of the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco; and Dr. Jonathan Butler, president of the NAACP San Francisco Branch.

Leaders from the Church of Jesus Christ who participated were Elder Matthew S. Holland, a General Authority Seventy; Sister Tracy Y. Browning, Second Counselor in the Primary General Presidency; and Elder Corbitt, as well as their spouses.

“It’s one thing to read about a place,” said Sister Browning. “It’s a completely different experience to be quite immersed in that location — to be there, to smell, to see, to feel and to hear about the lives of people who were deeply impacted by this history that you learned about in a classroom. … It’s immersive. It’s intense.”

During one excursion, participants dressed in white and walked to the “last bath” at the Assin Manso Ancestral Slave River in Ghana, where enslaved people were forcefully bathed before making the long trek to the Cape Coast Castles slave dungeons, from which they exited, stripped of their identities.

Reactions were deeply personal and varied for group members, who were invited to remove their shoes at what is now considered sacred ground.

Sister Browning said, “There have been a few places in my life that I have gone to and felt that high level of reverence. And I felt it again when I was in these places in Ghana, these sites where we saw great injustices occur, things that we believe that Jesus Christ can help us heal from.”

“Even my greatest imagination, whatever I can think, does not compare to the agony and trauma my ancestors faced,” said Poe.

“They were no longer chiefs or priests or queen mothers when they went into those dungeons; they were stripped of everything that made them a personality, a human, and they came up a negro,” said Rev. Crawford. “They came up as a person without a history, without a language, without a culture.”

Elder Corbitt said, “It has been a sweet, personal experience for me to come back to a region and to step into a river where enslaved black people walked and to see the evidence of brutality with which they were treated.”

Acknowledging that experiences and reactions were different and valid for each participant, Elder Corbitt said, “I think of myself and see myself foremost as a child of God. My sadness is swallowed up in the joy and the hope that comes through Jesus Christ. … I’m urged and inspired to do family history work, not become angry at others.”

At the end of the video, participants were asked what they gained from their experiences in Ghana.

Sister Browning said, “We want those that came here to have a personal experience, to really, really feel how they can become an ambassador for peace and harmony and for unity and for understanding.”

Elder Corbitt said he saw a fulfillment of President Nelson’s vision, prophecy and promise of “perfect peace and harmony of bridges of cooperation instead of walls of segregation.” He added, “To actually live that and watch it play out before our eyes over these few days has been wonderful.”

Reactions From Fellows

“My biggest takeaway from this experience is the reality and possibility of deep connections that can be made with people who have many differences in their lives, different backgrounds, religions, ideas, upbringings,” said Brittni Burleigh.

“As I reflect on my experience,” said Poe, “the word that comes to mind is forgiveness. As I was filled with those emotions, the most powerful one was forgiveness because forgiveness was a choice of mine.”

A takeaway for Saiida Webb is the importance of leading with love. “I’ve seen the impact, personally, like how I could have led with love in a different way to foster and create just a better space of community and openness. And I saw what it was like to be led with love, and how that made it so much easier for me to accept all of the nuance and the richness and the complexity of people’s emotions and lived experience.”

Francesca Paul commented, “So, throughout this trip, there’s been a main theme about identity for me, and to be able to see where ancestors have come from and to see what they’ve been capable of ignites this passion within me to want to honor their sacrifices. And going home, I feel this responsibility to want to help others come to know about who they are, what they’re capable of, and allow them to fully embrace themselves.”