After a day of fasting and prayerful contemplation, George Romney, the father of future GOP Presidential candidate Williard Mitt Romney, ran for Governor of Michigan and eventually won.
While governor he received a letter dated January 23, 1964, from a Mormon Apostle named Delbert L. Stapley, who urged the governor to reconsider his deepening involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. You can view the the typewritten letter, re-published in the Boston Globe, here.
The letter appears to be written out of genuine concern, while simultaneously being a repulsive relic of racist thinking. The author later backed off the racial posture he took in this letter and in 1978 he fully embraced the "revelation...by President Spencer W. Kimball extending priesthood and temple blessings to all worthy male members of the Church," even if they were black.
After receipt of Stapley's letter, Governor Romney ramped up his support of the Civil Rights Movement that he had been involved in the year before:
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - In 1963, an explosive year in the quest for civil rights, George Romney appeared unannounced in the mostly white suburb of Grosse Pointe and marched to the front of an anti-segregation demonstration to stand beside black leaders.http://www.standard.net/...Letters from startled constituents poured into the office of the first-term Michigan governor, whose son Mitt was then 16. Supporters who had helped him win his narrow victory the previous November said his actions made him "a double-crosser" and a "Judas to the people that voted for you." Their diatribes were sprinkled with warnings that they would work against him: "You are a ’dead duck’ for 1964," one detractor typed above a newspaper photograph of a shirt-sleeved Romney walking shoulder to shoulder with civil rights activists.
The elder Romney pressed ahead with an aggressive civil rights agenda that ultimately put him at odds with the leaders of his party. He refused to back Barry Goldwater as the 1964 Republican presidential nominee because, he told Goldwater in a letter, he was alarmed by indications that Goldwater’s strategists "proposed to make an all-out push for the Southern white segregationist vote" and "exploit the so-called ’white backlash’ in the North."
George Romney began pushing reforms to end discrimination toward minorities in housing soon after taking office in 1963 - work that would lead to his highly controversial effort to integrate the nation’s white suburbs as President Richard Nixon’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He launched his own 1968 presidential run after a 19-day tour of the ghettos of 17 cities, turning a spotlight on the decay and overcrowding that had contributed to riots in Detroit and elsewhere.
The letter to Governor George Romney is excerpted below:
Governor George W. Romneyhttp://freethoughtblogs.com/...
Governor’s Mansion
Lansing, MichiganDear George:
It was a real pleasure to greet and have a moment to visit with you and Lenore here this past week. It is wonderful to see how enthusiastically you are received by the good people of Utah.
After listening to your talk on Civil Rights, I am very much concerned. Several others have expressed the same concern to me. It does not altogether harmonize with my own understandings regarding this subject; therefore, I thought to drop you a note — not in my official Church position, but as a personal friend. Only President McKay can speak for the Church.
I felt, George, your views were most liberal on this vital problem in the light of the revelations, but nevertheless, I cannot deny you the right of your position if it represents your true belief and feelings.
I would like to suggest you read two items on this subject, both by the Prophet Joseph Smith. Turn to page 269 of Teachings Of The Prophet Joseph Smith by Joseph Fielding Smith, and read beginning the middle of the page under the caption, “The Status of the Negro,” giving particular attention to the closing sentence on page 270. Also, read from History of the Church, Period 1, Volume 2, beginning on page 436, under the heading, “The Prophet’s Views on Abolition,” which article continues to the bottom of page 440. After reading this last-mentioned statement by the Prophet, then come back to the last paragraph on page 438, and give it some real thought.
When I reflect upon the Prophet’s statements and remember what happened to three of our nation’s presidents who were very active in the Negro cause, I am sobered by their demise. They went contrary to the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith — unwittingly, no doubt, but nevertheless, the prophecy of Joseph Smith, “. . . those who are determined to pursue a course, which shows an opposition, and a feverish restlessness against the decrees of the Lord, will learn, when perhaps it is too late for their own good, that God can do His own work, without the aid of those who are not dictated by His counsel,” has and will continue to be fulfilled.[...]
I am sure you know that the Prophet Joseph Smith, in connection with the Negro problem of this country, proposed to Congress that they sell public lands and buy up the Negro slaves and transport them back to Africa from whence they came. I am sure the Prophet, with his vision and understanding, foresaw the problems we are faced with today with this race, which caused him to promote this program.
The statements of the Prophet Joseph Smith have been a helpful influence on me because they accord with my own understandings regarding the Negro. I cannot, in my own feelings, accept the idea of public accomodations; the taking from the Whites their wishes to satisfy the Negros. I do not have any objection to recognizing the Negro in his place and giving him every opportunity for education, for employment, for whatever contribution he can make to the society of men and the protection and blessings of Government. Yet, all these things, in my judgment, should accord with the expressions of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
It is not right to force any class or race of people upon those of a different social order or race classification. People are happier when placed in the environment and association of like interests, racial instincts, habits, and natural groupings.
It is always fascinating to see how much earnest energy is devoted to justifying the assignment of second-class citizenship to other human beings, whether it's coming from Delbert Stapley in 1964 or Chick-Fil-A customer/activists in 2012.