One of the commenters on the the SLTrib article regarding the church's response to racist remarks by Bott found and included this article. Maybe it was one of you guys? If so, God bless ye. I read the interview when I was first seriously thinking about resigning, maybe in 2006 or 2007. I looked for it since then, but couldn't find it again, and here it is suddenly. One of the best things about it is that Richards clearly shows that it was not a "revelation" as the church said it was. It was just a moment of, "So, whatcha think?" "I dunno. What do YOU think?"

Anyway, here's the 1978 interview with Richards, copied and pasted from the comment:

Interview with
Apostle LeGrand Richards

By Wesley P. Walters and Chris Vlachos

16th August 1978

Church Office Building

(Recorded on Cassette)

WALTERS: On this revelation, of the priesthood to the Negro, I've heard all
kinds of stories: I've heard that Joseph Smith appeared; and then I heard
another story that Spencer Kimball had, had a concern about this for some time,
and simply shared it with the apostles, and they decided that this was the
right time to move in that direction. Are any of those stories true, or are
they all?

RICHARDS: Well, the last one is pretty true, and I might tell you what provoked
it in a way. Down in Brazil,
there is so much Negro blood in the population there that it's hard to get
leaders that don't have Negro blood in them. We just built a temple down there.
It's going to be dedicated in October. All those people with Negro blood in
them have been raising the money to build that temple. If we don't change, then
they can't even use it. Well, Brother Kimball worried about it, and he prayed a
lot about it.

He asked each one of us of the Twelve if we would pray - and we did - that the
Lord would give him the inspiration to know what the will of the Lord was. Then
he invited each one of us in his office - individually, because you know when
you are in a group, you can't always express everything that's in your heart. You're
part of the group, you see - so he interviewed each one of us, personally, to
see how we felt about it, and he asked us to pray about it. Then he asked each
one of us to hand in all the references we had, for, or against that proposal.
See, he was thinking favorably toward giving the colored people the priesthood.

f His children. And then the next Thursday - we meet every Thursday - the
Presidency came with this little document written out to make the announcement
- to see how we'd feel about it - and present it in written form. Well, some of
the members of the Twelve suggested a few changes in the announcement, and then
in our meeting there we all voted in favor of it - the Twelve and the
Presidency. One member of the Twelve, Mark Petersen, was down in South
America, but Brother Benson, our President, had arranged to know where he could
be reached by phone, and right while we were in that meeting in the temple,
Brother Kimball talked with Brother Petersen, and read him this article, and he
(Petersen) approved of it.

WALTERS: What was the date? Would that have been the first of June, or
something?

RICHARDS: That was the first Thursday, I think, in May. [June?] At least that's
about when it was. And then after we all voted in favor of it, we called another
meeting for the next morning, Friday morning, at seven o'clock, of all the
other General Authorities - that includes the Seventies' Quorum and the
Patriarch and the Presiding Bishopric, and it was presented to them, and there
were a few of the brethren that were out presiding then in the missions, and so
the Twelve were appointed to interview each one of them.

***

WALTERS: Now when President Kimball read this little announcement or paper, was
that the same thing that was released to the press?

RICHARDS: Yes.

WALTERS: There wasn't a special document as a "revelation", that he
had and wrote down?

RICHARDS: We discussed it in our meeting. What else should we say besides that
announcement? And we decided that was sufficient; that no more needed to be
said.

WALTERS: Was that the letter you sent out to the various wards?

RICHARDS: And to the Church; and to the newspapers, yes.

VLACHOS: Will that become a part of "scripture"?

RICHARDS: Yes, I've already thought in my own mind of suggesting we add it to
the Pearl of Great Price, just like those last two revelations that we've just
added.

WALTERS: Will this affect your theological thinking about the Negro as being
less valiant in the previous existence? How does this relate? Have you thought
that through?

RICHARDS: Some time ago, the Brethren decided that we should never say that. We
don't know just what the reason was. Paul said, "The Lord hath before
appointed the bounds of the habitations of all men for to dwell upon the face
of the earth," and so He determined that before we were born. He who knows
why they were born with black skin or white and so on and so forth. We'll just
have to wait and find out.

WALTERS: Is there still a tendency to feel that people are born with black skin
because of some previous situation, or do we consider that black skin is no
sign anymore of anything inferior in any sense of the word?

RICHARDS: Well, we don't want to get that as a doctrine. Think of it as you
will. You know, Paul said "Now we see in part and we know in part; we see
through a glass darkly. When that which is perfect is come, then that which is
in part shall be done away, then we will see as we are seen, and know as we are
known." Now the Church's attitude today is to prefer to leave it until we
know. The Lord has never indicated that black skin came because of being less
faithful. Now, the Indian; we know why he was changed, don't we? The Book of
Mormon tells us that; and he has a dark skin, but he has a promise there that through
faithfulness, that they all again become a white and delightsome people. So
we haven't anything like that on the colored thing.

WALTERS: Now, with this new revelation - has it brought any new insights or new
ways of looking at the Book of Abraham? Because I think traditionally it is
thought of the curse of Cain, coming through Canaanites and on the
black-skinned people, and therefore denying the priesthood?

RICHARDS: We considered that with all the "for's" and the
"against's" and decided that with all of that, if they lived their
lives, and did the work, that they were entitled to their blessings.

WALTERS: But you haven't come up with any new understanding of the Book of
Abraham? I just wondered whether there would be a shift in that direction. Is
the recent revelation in harmony with what the past prophets have taught, of
when the Negro would receive the priesthood?

RICHARDS: Well, they have held out the thought that they would ultimately get
the priesthood, but they never determined the time for it. And so when this
situation that we face down there in Brazil - Brother Kimball worried a lot
about it - how the people are so faithful and devoted. The president of the
Relief Society of the stake is a colored woman down there in one of the stakes.
If they do the work, why it seems like that the justice of the Lord would
approve of giving them the blessing. Now it's all conditional upon the life
that they live, isn't it?

WALTERS: Well, I thank you for clarifying that for me, because you know, out in
the streets out there, there must be at least five, ten different stories about
the way this happened.

RICHARDS: Well, I've told you exactly what happened.

So if it were a game of chess, that would be checkmate, but since Mormonism is so GD irrational, they get a free pass when it comes to logic.

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing!