President Kimball’s Wrestle With God

Spencer W. Kimball

Elder Spencer W. Kimball's Letter to Edward Kimball, March 11, 1963, in Edward L. Kimball, "Spencer W. Kimball and the Revelation on Priesthood," BYU Studies 47, no. 2 (2008): 48 and Elder Spencer W. Kimball's Letter to Edward Kimball, 1963. Edward L. Kimball, ed., The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball: Twelfth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982), 448-49.

”I had a great deal to fight,” he later recalled, “myself, largely, because I had grown up with this thought that Negroes should not have the priesthood and I was prepared to go all the rest of my life until my death and fight for it and defend it as it was.” 

“The doctrine or policy has not varied in my memory. I know it could. I know the Lord could change his policy and release the ban and forgive the possible error which brought about the deprivation.”