Review
Title: Panther to Priesthood
Author: Eddie Leroy Willis
Publisher: Deseret Book
Genre: Non-Fiction Biography
Year Published: 2022
Number of Pages: 153
Binding: Hardback
ISBN:978-1-63993-020-3
Price: $19.99
Reviewed by Amanda Ray for the Association for Mormon Letters
Panther to Priesthood, a short memoir of growing up in California at a pivotal time in history, is engaging and informative. Eddie Leroy Willis details his experiences with illness, poverty, abuse, crime, and racism from a young age, and how those early experiences and people in his life influenced his later-in-life decision to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, after stints in jail and rehab. Those early experiences obviously had a profound and lasting effect on him, and shape his thoughts and motivations as he moves through other stages of his life. His times in the criminal justice system would make anyone bitter and angry, and you can certainly see how the Black Panthers offered him relief and support when he needed it.
This was definitely a book written for Deseret Book, as the focus is his conversion and the effect of the light of Christ in his life. It’s an absorbing story that needs to be told and shared, and open up for the sharing of other similar stories. I think many of us have attended a ward meeting with a person like Willis, and I am anxious for those stories to be memorialized and shared as well, so we can more easily see how our church membership in this country is rich in diversity and perspectives. While Panther to Priesthood’s focus was on more spiritual aspects, it brushed through a number of personal stories that I wish had been developed more to bring in that connection we can make with the person and find additional similarities.
I appreciate that Willis doesn’t shy away from naming and pointing out the racism and injustices he experienced. It’s not done in a way to make the reader feel guilty – it’s flatly identified and explained. He even devotes a whole chapter to racism in the church, which I think can help bring a different demographic to better understand how that happens and what can be done to counter it so we can all be better siblings in Christ. If nothing else, the book is valuable for that chapter and I would recommend that be given some extra focus.
One aspect that I wish I Panther to Priesthood had given more attention to were details about Willis’s major life events. Willis mentions the deaths of immediate family members, and they’re almost (but not entirely) inconsequential to the narrative. Same with a mention of a decade of rehab progress and backsliding. I understand that the purpose of the book is to promote a spiritual message and give positive thoughts, but a deeper dive into the times in his life when he needed spiritual comfort would have given more weight to the impact of Christ and the Gospel in his life and even made it more engaging. Mentioning and moving past some of the difficult, but possibly more relatable, times in his life means lack of a connection that could have brought in even more readers to better grasp Willis’ mindset and perspective.
Despite some of the drawbacks I found with the narrative, I have to recommend Panther to Priesthood and Willis’ story to everyone. Not only is it a story of one man’s triumph over hardships and disadvantages, but it’s a beautiful story of how the Gospel can influence and guide and speak to people even when they can’t quite articulate what it is. We get a beautiful trajectory and gain a new friend in Brother Willis by the end.