As for the news of the revelation–I don’t think honking horns were part of the day, but embraces certainly were. I was in Mexico City and heard the news from my bishop’s wife, who was weeping from joy. I think the joy was more private than public, and rather restrained in a lot of cases. Lots of tears and hugs.

Manaen, what year was Shefyl Lynn Townsend at BYU? She’s probably about my age. I’d love to see the poem.

It sounds wonderful, I’m so excited to see it. I assume you’ll post information on how to order the DVD when it comes out, yes? Also, is it going to play anywhere on the East Coast? One final question, which myabe you can answer more authoratatively because of your research. My impression is that, for the majority of the Church, the announcement of the Revelation in 1978 was not just a major revelation, and not just exciting, but a day of real rejoicing–i.e. spontaneously embracing in the streets and honking your horn on main street in Provo. Is that pretty accurate? I know there were some people who were, unfortunately, slow to accept the news, but, on a whole, is my perception accurate? That has always been my understanding. I hope it is correct.

It appeared in your comments regarding the show on The Juvenile Instructor that you were interested in tracking down Gene Orr. I don’t know exactly where he lives now, but I could find out. He lived in Barrhead, Alberta until a few years ago. While serving a mission in Alberta I spent many a wonderful Sunday afternoon in his home.

Of course, I thought about trying to find footage of Elder McConkie giving the “Forget everything…” talk, and even searched for it. I came up empty. Since it was given to Church employees at a CES fireside, I don’t know that it is accessible at all in video form. The other thing I was intensely aware of is that we show many LDS Church leaders–all of whom are familiar to Mormons, but not to the non-LDS audience. Because our objective is bridge-building, I tended to shy away from too much footage of OUR familiar faces. (In fact, in the 60-minute version, we lose several of them. We took out the chapter on the Genesis Group in that edit–as well as other material. The sixty-minute version is what we hope will air on PBS or the History Channel someday. They have strict time requirements.)

We were rather brutal editors, aiming for something accessible to a wide audience. We don’t go into much depth at all about the some Church leaders’ opposition to Civil Rights (though we have that wonderful footage depicting protestors), as Kaimi noted. And there was some material I was CERTAIN would be in the DVD which didn’t make it to final cut. That all-important 1879 meeting to determine whether or not Elijah Abel could be endowed is not mentioned at all in the Documentary. That surprised even me, but I remember the day I realized it simply didn’t fit. Of course, it’ll be in the Special Features, but putting it into the documentary itself would have gotten us into some of the nitty-gritty of names and dates–lethal to many potential audience members. (“Who is Zebedee Coltrin? WHo’s Abraham Smoot? Am I supposed to remember these guys and everyone else too?) Though we have Greg Prince talking at length about President McKay and the discussions of doctrine/policy, we edited a lot of that when there were too many names for the audience to keep track of.

I think what you as an audience member should come away with is a sense of the generally unknown history of Blacks in the LDS Church, a sense of the evolution of the priesthood restriction and its undergirding teachings, a sense of the Mormon worldview (including the importance of revelation), and a sense that though challenges remain, there are many remarkable modern Black pioneers. I think you get to know some amazing people–Tamu, Darius, Ted, etc. They are really the soul of the film.

DVD–I’m guessing we’ll have it out by the end of June. We need to finish special features, then sound master and color correct them, then package. We will look for some kind of public television airing possibility.

!!!!? What?