Because our generation has been so strongly discouraged from writing directly to Church leaders, I think it may be difficult for us to understand quite how ordinary a thing it was throughout the 20th century to write letters about questions or problems or complaints – to General Authorities, to stake presidents, to mission presidents (not just active missionaries, but members outside stakes to the presidents of the missions where they lived, who had responsibility for members as well as missionaries), to Church publications. Those letters, often preserved in the papers of leaders collected in libraries and archives, will someday make a fascinating resource for analyzing the concerns and activities of Latter-day Saints around the world.

In the summer of 1956, Faye Sumner O’Bryant (1913-1976) was one of those with a number of questions on which she wanted advice. Faye was a daughter of the Southern States: She had been born and would die in Arkansas; her mother was from Kentucky; she married a man from Alabama. In 1956, she was living in Memphis, Tennessee, having moved there from somewhere in Mississippi.

Baptized at age 10, with her mother (her father would later join the Church), Faye married twice, and had one son who was probably raised in the Church but converted to Catholicism in young adulthood. If Faye has any living descendants, they are probably not LDS, and certainly aren’t particularly interested in genealogy – FamilySearch and Ancestry.com provide only the boniest of bare bones facts to someone wanting to learn about Faye’s life.

But there is also that letter that she wrote in 1956, written chiefly for understanding on a doctrinal matter (scriptural references to Jesus being both the Father and the Son). Writing with black ballpoint pen on lined, three-hole punched notebook paper, Faye spelled out her question over three full pages. There are some mechanical problems with her writing, but it’s not bad, and for such a complex question, recording the possible solutions she has found, she writes extraordinarily well.

She records a beautiful testimony:

I am sorry I had to write such a long letter. Taking up so much of your time. But I wanted you to understand how important it is for me to have a full understanding …

I know that Jesus is the Christ. Also Joseph Smith was and still is a true prophet of God. That he did see and speak to the Father and the Son. As much as I know I am alive to-day. But I happen to be one of his children who is slow of understanding. If I sound like I am making excuses. Please for-give me because I am not. It is just my way of explaining things. Because I love our Gospel and stand up to testify of its truthfulness every time I get the chance. In Church with friends or with enemies. It makes no difference to me. I love to tell the story of its true teachings and will as long as I am able to breathe.

Then, almost as an afterthought, she adds one final, long paragraph (I’ll break it up here for ease in reading on the screen). And sharing that paragraph, really, is the purpose of this post. On one level, it is unremarkable, and you’ll already be thoroughly familiar with the racial animus it records. But on another level, it is extraordinary. Without citing scripture or otherwise justifying her opinions with appeals to authority, Faye reports what she truly feels: That hatred of any part of God’s creation has no place in the hearts or religion of Latter-day Saints. Whenever she has dared to speak up on the issue, she has been met with opposition and contempt– and now she writes for the confidence she needs from a Church leader.

If I may ask another favor of your time could you enlighten me a little on our Church stand in the Colored question. As you know we are the South who opposes it so much. There is some who don’t hate them in our Church. But there are more than you possibly can imagine who do hate them. Or what they stand for.

They testify of their love for our Church and authority and the Gospel. Also they know Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. But with the next breath they say they hate a negro. That he is alright in his place. But a negro is a negro.

Do you think any one can go back in to their father’s house with hate in their hearts for any thing that he created? I know we must teach our children right as we pledge in our articles of faith to uphold the Government. Then would it be right to tell them it is wrong on this subject. The state is right? Or must they accept the colored without anyone forcing them out of the love [in] their hearts for God & mankind. This is my belief.

But when I voice it even in relief society or to my husband who is a member of our Church and holds the Aaronic priesthood. They seem to get mad. And call me nigger lover. And go live with them if I want to. All such things.

In Mississippi you don’t dare mention it in our town where we moved from much less in our Church. If you say one word in their (Colored) defense you see people who are your brother and sister in the Gospel get their fighting clothes on. So I always shut up.

But I wonder if I will ever be put to a point where I may have to say something. In that case I would be very appreciative, of any advice you can give me as to how our Church leaders would handle the question, I want to be always right with God and his choice leaders in the way to conduct my life on any question.

But I don’t think you can possibly understand the seriousness of this question facing a lot of our members down South to-day. They need advice bad. Some one who is inspired of God on the matter. Not just men who are the head of their State. Our beloved song “do what is right” means a lot to them. If they can only get what [is] right for them to do. The way God approves the question.

The response Faye’s question received was not what she had hoped, and was at least as bad as you might expect. It was 1956, remember. I know your curiosity wants that reply, but for now I will withhold it because I want to keep the focus on Faye Sumner O’Bryant, a woman who somehow understood, in the face of constant social conditioning otherwise, that a Latter-day Saint cannot “go back into their father’s house with hate in their hearts for anything that he created.”