The Tanners insisted that the LDS Church, which avoided proselytizing in nations with large numbers of Black citizens, could not be the true church of Jesus Christ because it did not obey Jesus's final "Great Commission" at the end of the Gospel of Matthew: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of teh Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matthew 28:19–20. The "proof text" often adduced fro the church's exclusionary practice was Moses 7:12, where Enoch calls all the people to repent "save it were the people of Canaan," because of the curse that fell upon them a few verses earlier (v. 8). . . .

Kimball's revelation had come fifteen years after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the March on Washington, and twenty-two years after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus. What had taken so long? Jerald and Sandra gave credit to the LDS Church for the change, noting it would "undoubtedly help blacks obtain equality in Utah." But they also wrote that the 1978 announcement was an example of the church's bowing to social pressure. The decision also made them feel personally vindicated for their own part in applying that pressure

Since we have probably printed more material critical of the Mormon anti-black doctrine than any other publisher, the new revelation comes as a great victory and a vindication of our work. We printed our first criticism of this doctrine in 1959. This was certainly not a popular cause to espouse in those days. (In fact, at one time a Mormon threatened to punch Sandra in the nose over the issue).