Kevin Barney, Illinois
I was serving a mission for the Church in Colorado at the time. My companion and I were in a member’s car driving to an appointment. As we went, the radio announcer interrupted the program with news of the revelation. We were all elated, of course, and whooped it up. Over the next few weeks, to my observation, every member of the Church I saw was absolutely thrilled by this development. I personally did not encounter a single negative reaction.
Michael W. Fordham, Tacoma WA
I was in the U.S. Army stationed in Hawaii, and I was inactive. I was watching the news on TV when I heard about the Priesthood now being available to all worthy males. From my reading about the church, I knew that the prophets had always said this day would come, so I thought I had better go back to church and see what was happening. I have been active ever since. Also, this revelation did not affect me personally as I am Caucasian. I saw it as the fulfillment of prophecy and as evidence that the church is true.
D.E. Neighbors
I was a janitor at the University of Oklahoma at the time, and had been a member less than a year. I think I heard about the 1978 proclamation on the evening news, and I was most pleased to hear it. Honestly, I had not thought a great deal about it, since my Protestant background had been in churches with “whites only” congregations, so I was just rolling with the flow while I learned more about the Church. However, my strongest memory of the event came several months later.
While doing my morning rounds one morning I met a fellow who had come into the building early to get a little studying done before class started. This was to be a standard routine for him and the beginning of a friendship between us. While I swept the room, Art and I would talk about just about anything, so it didn’t take long for the subject of religion to arise. I told him I was LDS, and he told me he didn’t have a good opinion about the Church because of their stance on blacks in the Priesthood. Of course, I told him that had changed, and that earlier that year the Priesthood had been extended to all worthy men in the Church.
His response at the time was noncommittal, though he admitted he had not heard the news. However, a few months after that conversation I happened to drop by the Norman Stake Center and happened to see Art walking down the hall with the Bishop.
The upshot was that Art had fallen away from the Church some 12 years previously over the Priesthood issue, and it was the news of the 1978 proclamation that brought him back into the fold.
Scott Gordon, Redding CA
I was on my mission in Zurich Switzerland. A member of the ward came into the church building and excitedly told us that the ban had been removed. I’m sure I looked dumbfounded because he told me to go look in the newspaper. My missionary companion and I went down the street to a newspaper stand. Sure enough, it was true. I had been taught all of my life that it would happen some day and it finally did. I was excited. I was very happy. That day in church it was announced from the pulpit. One African brother jumped up from his pew and threw his arms in the air in a sign of excitement. The Bishop announced that all those who did not have the priesthood would be ordained that day.
The members were all excited. There was back slapping and hugs for those members who were affected. I saw several people with tears of joy in their eyes. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.
Debbie Wyatt
I remember that day! I was driving in my car with my infant son when the news bulletin came on stating that the Prophet had received a revelation that all worthy men would be able to hold the Priesthood. The joy and happiness at hearing the news was so overwhelming that I could not drive; I had to pull the car over to the side of the road. On that day I did not know how the ban being lifted was going to affect my family, but I knew that it would.
When the revelation was received in 1978, my husband and I had one child, and a year later we had our second child. We then received news that due to medical complications, we would not be able to have any more children. It was a hard burden, as both my husband and I had planned to have many children. We fasted and prayed many times. The Lord gave us the sweet assurance that in time we would have another child added to our family. We didn’t know how or when, but we trusted in Him.
A little over eight years later, in 1986, my husband and I adopted our youngest son. My husband and I are white. Our youngest son is mulatto; his biological mother is white and his biological father is black. Through the miracle of LDS Social Services, we were able to bring him home with us when he was only three days old. When he was six months old we took him to the Chicago Temple to be sealed to us. That day in the temple, as I held that sweet baby and knew he would be with us forever, the feeling of joy I experienced eight years before came flooding back to me. The blessings of the temple, denied to so many faithful Saints over so many years, could belong to my son and he could be sealed to us. I continually praise God’s name for that blessing in my life.
Peter Siebach
I clearly remember the feelings of that day in 1978 every time I hear the revelation mentioned. I thank my Father in Heaven for a wise and loving prophet who cared so much for the people of this world that he would pray for the ban to be lifted. I have no doubt it was from God, and the time for the lifting was right. In our lives, in more ways than one, it has been a miracle.
I had just finished my first year at BYU and was home in Reading, PA for the summer. I had just accepted a job to work in Allegheny National Forest with the Youth Conservation Corps. I had previously worked for them and my experience was that my work crew would be very diverse. I remember my father called my sisters and I together and told us that the blacks could now hold the Priesthood. I remember feeling relief that really I had nothing any longer to feel embarrassed about because of my church membership — and I would be able to very positively respond if/when discussion of the former ban came up at work.
Unfortunately, in retrospect my response was purely selfish, not once did I initially think about of the joy this blessing would bring to so many of my brothers.
Sheri Gordon
I remember it very well. My mother picked me up from school that day. When I got in the car, my mother told me she had just heard on the radio that the church had announced that the blacks would get the priesthood. My mother and I sat in the car and cried. We talked about how the work was going forward. We were really excited for a black man in our ward who was ordained two weeks after the announcement.
Forest Simmons, Portland OR
I was a graduate student at the University of Texas, Austin Texas. When I arrived home from school that afternoon, my wife Janeil said that one of our neighbors, a member who had served a mission in Brazil where there were many members with African lineage who were waiting for the day when they could receive the priesthood and be sealed with their families in the temple, … that this neighbor had received a phone call from a relative in Utah to the effect that black men could now hold the priesthood.
I dismissed it as a rumor, and thought no more of it until later that evening when I was jogging past Zilker Park on the path around Town Lake. The thought crossed my mind, “How do these rumors get started?” Suddenly and unexpectedly and very clearly I heard a voice exclaim to my mind, “It is not a rumor. It is true!”
Immediately I was filled with a warm feeling throughout my whole body, from head to toes. As I marveled at this experience I felt a life time of racial prejudice being swept out of my heart. Amazingly, I was never aware of being prejudiced until that moment when I felt the prejudice leaving me. I had always considered that my views were fair and impartial towards everybody of all races.
Later I wondered why the Lord had given me such a strong testimony of this revelation of June 8, 1978. With the passing of time I have received many opportunities to testify that this policy change wasn’t just a measure of political expediency taken by church leaders in the face of public pressure. I know without a shadow of a doubt that it was (and is) a revelation from God.
Gail Wasden, Petaluma CA
Our family was living in Honolulu, Hawaii, and I was talking on the phone at about 8 in the morning with my mother, who lived near the temple in Laie, when I could hear a commotion in the background. Mom finally excused herself for a moment and I could hear some excited conversation in the background. When she came back to the phone, she could hardly talk. The commotion had come from her neighbor/landlady, who lived in the duplex apartment next door. She had just received a phone call from her daughter, who lived in Salt Lake City and had heard the announcement on TV (it was 11 a.m. in Utah) and immediately called with the news. We were jubilant!
I called my friend, whose husband was bishop of the student ward at the University of Hawaii, which included a young black convert, and she responded that maybe this was why the stake president had called about thirty minutes earlier trying to locate her husband. Mike, the young man, had spoken in stake conference two weeks before and expressed his testimony that he knew he would receive the priesthood some day and was so converted to the gospel, he was content to wait.
The local TV stations picked up the story about an hour later and repeated it numerous times throughtout the day. About a week later when my husband and I went to the temple on a Wednesday night, Mike was there. He was also there the following Saturday morning when we went again, and both times, everyone in the room wanted to shake his hand. It was an incredible time.
Benjamin Whitehead
I am not black, but I found your website and testimonies captivating.
I was eight years old, and sitting next to my father in sacrament meeting the day that the declaration was read over the pulpit that all worthy males could hold the priesthood. I remember vividly how my father wept next to me, and though I didn’t understand at the time the significance of that revelation, I am beginning to.
May God continue to bless your work, and may it touch many people.
Send in your story: where were you when the ban fell.