When Harold B. Lee succeeded Joseph Fielding Smith in July 1972, in his first press conference he took the position on the priesthood ban articulated in the 1969 statement he had drafted: "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks." A few months later at another media interview, he gave a more positive response: "It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we're just waiting for that time." He proposed no time schedule and reiterated that change would have to come through revelation.

The issue unquestionably occupied President Lee's mind. For example, he asked Marion D. Hanks to describe what answer he gave as president of the Temple Square Mission and elsewhere when asked about the Church policy on race and the priesthood. Like the presidents before him, President Lee responded to specific issues as they arose. He approved a general policy that black children could be sealed to nonblack adoptive parents. President McKay had previously approved such dealings on an individual basis.

Footnote 105 for the above reads

Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian, [p. 180] and Arrington to author, February 10 and June 15, 1998, assert that President Lee, shortly before his death, sought the Lord's will on the question of blacks and the priesthood during "three days and nights [of] fasting in the upper room of the temple, . . . but the only answer he received was 'not yet.'" Arrington relied on an unidentified person close to President Lee, but President Lee's son-in-law and biographer found no record of such an incident and thought it doubtful. L. Brent Goates, interview by author, February 9, 1998.