Jane Elizabeth Manning James, fondly known as "Aunt Jane", was an early African-American member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and traveled to Utah as a pioneer. She lived with Joseph Smith and his family for a time in Nauvoo, Illinois. She traveled with her family to Utah, spending the winter of 1846–1847 at Winter Quarters, and was among the first of the pioneers to enter the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. As a black woman, Jane was not allowed to enter the temple during her lifetime and petitioned the First Presidency of the church multiple times to be endowed and sealed. As a result of her requests she was adopted as a servant into the family of Joseph Smith through a specially-created temple ceremony. She was posthumously endowed by proxy in the Salt Lake Temple in 1979.

Danielle Deadwyler is an American actress. She began her career appearing on Atlanta stage, including in the 2009 production of For Colored Girls, and made her screen debut in the 2012 drama film A Cross to Bear. Deadwyler appeared in the primetime series The Haves and the Have Nots (2015–2017), the series P-Valley (2020), the miniseries Station Eleven (2021–2022), and the miniseries From Scratch (2022).