Icame to know President Russell M. Nelson in 2018 when, on his initiative, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints volunteered to fund the restoration of the office of the slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers in my hometown of Jackson, Mississippi.

This was not only a tangible effort by the church to build a bridge across racial lines, but it was of immense personal meaning to me.

Medgar Evers was my first mentor. As a teenager I met him in that office and with him I attended my first NAACP convention, the organization whose board I would later serve on for many years. And I attended Medgar Evers’ funeral in that office, standing next to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

That connection led to not only a close working relationship between me and President Nelson, but also a deep, per

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