Back Story of Official Declaration- Negro Priesthood

It was no revelation from God, but a fabrication due to political pressure (Jimmy Carter, seeking the Nobel Peace Prize had threatened, during a visit here, to sic IRS upon Church, taking away tax exempt status.  

Hugh B. Brown, 1st Counselor to David O. McKay stated how such things come: "Hugh B. Brown, a high-ranking member of the Mormon hierarchy for 22 years up to his death in 1975, says in just-published memoirs that many The Holy Priesthood http://ogdenkraut.com/Holy Priesthood 2 Doc.htm[3/6/2012 8:51:37 AM] church decisions called "revelations" were actually decisions first "thrashed out" thoroughly by the top authorities. Those decisions "are no less revelatory, but it is simplistic to think that it comes as a bolt out of the blue," said the memoirs' editor, Edwin B. Firmage, a grandson of Brown and a law professor at the University of Utah. The decision-making procedure, Brown explained, generally worked like this: "[An idea] is submitted to the First Presidency and Twelve, thrashed out, discussed and rediscussed until it seems right. then, kneeling together in a circle in the temple, they seek divine guidance and the president says, `I feel to say this is the will of the Lord.' That becomes a revelation. It is usually not thought necessary to publish or proclaim it as such, but this is the way it happens." (by John Dart, L.A. Times writer, as quoted in the S.L. Tribune, Sun., Dec. 4, 1988, B-15) [200] The 1978 announcement is apparently supported on the premise that it came as a result of a good "feeling." Since many things can give someone a "good feeling," such a revelation or feeling must be tested to know by which source it came. There must be certainty in such a matter, for it is easy to be convinced by emotions, intentions, reason, or other such persuasive influences that are really not revelations from God.