Word: utah
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...word came suddenly in June: after more than 100 years of barring blacks from its priesthood, the Utah-based Mormon Church was reversing its stand. Spencer Kimball, 83, the church's leader, had experienced a revelation. For 4 million practicing Mormons, a period of anxious waiting followed as Kimball refused to elaborate publicly on his moment of epiphany. Finally TIME Staff Writer Richard Ostling broke through the wall of silence to interview Kimball for this week's story on the Mormon Church...
...with a mammoth parade. At the head of the procession was Brigham Young's latest successor, Spencer Woolley Kimball, 83, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Behind him were brass bands, floats, fiddlers, and such lesser dignitaries as Scott M. Matheson, the Governor of Utah...
Kimball's revelation freed the faith from a gnawing problem. Missionaries faced constant questions about Mormon racism. "Church young people were mortified," says University of Utah Historian Brigham Madsen. "They would not put up with it any longer." The N.A.A.C.P. went to court to end bias in Mormon Boy Scout troops. A dissident member even dared picket the 28-story headquarters building that dominates the Salt Lake City skyline. The revelation also solved the dilemma of who is eligible to use the new temple in racially mixed Brazil...
Sterling M. McMurrin, graduate dean at the University of Utah and leading Mormon liberal, gives Kimball personal credit for changing the church's stance. "He is a deeply spiritual person, not bureaucratic," says McMurrin. "He has suffered through this problem for 30 years." What if Kimball had not received the revelation during his tenure? Under the strict seniority system among Apostles, the next president in line is Ezra Taft Benson, 78, Ike's Agriculture Secretary. After him would come Mark E. Petersen, 77, former editor of the church-owned daily, Salt Lake's Deseret News. Both are considered much...
...Administration and Senate Democratic leaders were confident that they had a firm majority of votes for passage of the bill. But they were not certain they could enlist the 60 votes needed to cut off the filibuster led by Republican Senators Richard Lugar of Indiana and Orrin Hatch of Utah. Lugar argued that owners of small businesses are "overtaxed and overregulated" and had a legitimate fear of a "further extension of union organizing power and of a strengthened National Labor Relations Board." He had helped prepare 1,200 amendments that could have come up for votes...