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Alan Gerald Cherry (born 1946) is an African-American Latter Day Saint. In 1970 he wrote a book entitled It's You and Me Lord. Since that time he has been a popular speaker at Latter Day Saint Young Single Adult Conferences and firesides.

Cherry was born and raised in New York City. He was in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom during which Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream Speech". Cherry joined the LDS Church in 1968 while in the United States Air Force. He latter studied at Brigham Young University where he was an original members of the BYU Young Ambassadors.

In 1978, after Spencer W. Kimball received the revelation embodied in Official Declaration—2, Cherry submitted his mission papers. Although at the age of 34 he was above the normal age of service, he was called on a mission to Oakland, California.

In 1985 Jessie L. Embry hired Cherry to collect interviews with black Mormons around the United States, contributing to the LDS African-American Oral History Project at BYU. Among those Cherry met on this project was Janice Barkum, whom Cherry married in the Salt Lake Temple in 1987. They became the parents of three children.^[1]

In the LDS Church Cherry has served in several callings including as a member of a stake high council.

Besides his bachelors in sociology Cherry latter earned a Masters in Organizational Behavior from BYU. As of the spring of 2008 Cherry was working as a grants officer at Utah Valley University.

Cherry played the role of an IRS agent in Kieth Merrill's 1981 film Harry's War.^[2] In 1988 Cherry was among those interviewed in a KBYU commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the revelation on the priesthood.^[3] Cherry was cast in the role of a freed slave in Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration.

Notes

Sources

• May 21, 2008 article on Cherry from Mormon Times
• LDS film bio of Cherry
• Morris, Michael (May 5, 1990). "Black LDS Members Have Varied Needs and Expectations, Meet Told". Deseret News. http://archive.deseretnews.com/archive/100765/BLACK-LDS-MEMBERS-HAVE-VARIED-NEEDS-AND-EXPECTATIONS-MEET-TOLD.html. Retrieved 2009-06-10.  
• bio of Cherry
• Library Thing entry