Latter-day Saint hymn “Come, Come Ye Saints” is one of a couple hymns the Rev. Dr. Amos C. Brown has discovered that unify “the Black experience and the experience of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” the civil rights legend recently said in a conversation with Tabernacle Choir President Michael O. Leavitt.
“Come, come, ye saints, no toil nor labor fear, though hard to you this journey may appear,” the Rev. Brown said, reciting fragments of the hymn’s lyrics as he spoke with Leavitt in São Paulo, Brazil.
“I just love that verse that goes on to say, ‘Gird up your loins; fresh courage take. Our God will never us forsake.’”
The Rev. Brown — a close friend of the late church President Russell M. Nelson and pastor emeritus of Third Baptist Church in San Francisco — traveled this week to see the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square perform in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as part of its “Songs of Hope” tour.
While there, the Rev. Brown was invited to speak with Leavitt in front of an audience of choir and orchestra members. A brief video highlighting clips of their conversation was published Wednesday on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
“You are the son of an itinerant preacher,” Leavitt said, speaking to the Rev. Brown. “Your mother was a stay-at-home mother. You joined eight children in that family. Jackson, Mississippi, was home.
“I’m curious — what role did music play in your life?”
The Rev. Brown replied, saying his family made a “ritual” of listening to the Wings Over Jordan Choir from Cleveland, Ohio, every Sunday morning on CBS.
That Sunday ritual was made complete, he said, with “listening to the Tabernacle Choir from Salt Lake City, beneath the hills,” perform its weekly broadcast of “Music & the Spoken Word.”
“I long remember that rich, rewarding and most inclusive experience,” he said. He added it taught him to never “look down on another human being because we all learned through music that we were all children of God and God’s kingdom.”
During their conversation, Leavitt also acknowledged the Rev. Brown’s nearly 50-year pastoral service at Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, and invited the now pastor emeritus to speak on what a “lifetime of studying the life of Jesus Christ and worshipping him” has taught him.
“Our Lord and Savior was about love,” the Rev. Brown said. He was about “doing the work.”
“Faith without works is dead,” the Rev. Brown continued, citing James’ teachings in the New Testament.
“May the works this church has always done eternally speak for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
As a young man, the Rev. Dr. Brown was arrested alongside Martin Luther King Jr. at a lunch counter sit-in.
He belonged to the Freedom Riders — a group of activists who protested segregation on bus trips through the South in 1961 — and is now one of the last living activists that marched with King.
In 1976, the Rev. Brown became a pastor at Third Baptist Church in San Francisco.
He retired from that role last June, after nearly 50 years of service, and requested the Latter-day Saint hymn “Come, Come, Ye Saints” to be sung at his pastor emeritus designation service.
“Come, Come Ye Saints” has always been one of the Rev. Brown’s favorites, said Third Baptist’s music director James Davis Jr. in June.
“The choir has historically sung ‘Come, Come Ye Saints’ going back decades,” he said.
Learn more about why this Third Baptist Church adopted the pioneer anthem here and how the legendary Rev. Brown was honored at his pastor emeritus designation service here.