“It is not the authorities of the Church who have placed a restriction on him [men of the African race] regarding the holding of the Priesthood. It was not the Prophet Joseph Smith nor Brigham Young. It was the Lord!”

Joseph Fielding Smith – from a mimeographed letter – dated 9 July 1963, see John J. Stewart’s The Glory of Mormonism (Salt Lake City, UT: Mercury Publishing, 1963), 154.