SALT LAKE CITY — The national leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will meet Thursday with LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson and his counselors.

This meeting kicks off of the NAACP's quarterly board meeting, which is being held in Salt Lake City for the first time.

Jeanetta Williams has long requested a meeting in Utah's capital. Williams oversees the organization's work in Utah, Idaho and Nevada as president of the NAACP Salt Lake Branch.

"It is a historic meeting," she said, "and the NAACP Salt Lake Branch and myself as president are excited that the national board selected Salt Lake City to hold their May board meeting. We hope once they're here and do some sightseeing, it won't be their last time here."

The meeting with the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be held at the Church Administration Building on Temple Square.

Following the meeting with President Nelson and his counselors, President Dallin H. Oaks and President Henry B. Eyring, LDS and NAACP leaders will make a joint statement to the media, according to a media advisory released by the church on Monday morning.

The NAACP board meetings will commence shortly afterward at the Salt Lake Marriott, 75 S. West Temple. The meetings will continue through Saturday, with a Friday evening reception hosted by the Salt Lake branch.

Williams said she told members of the 64-person NAACP national board that she has had a strong working relationship with church leaders, especially late church President Gordon B. Hinckley and the late President James E. Faust, who served in the First Presidency. She delivered an official invitation to the board to meet in Salt Lake at its annual meeting in New York in February.

She said some board members plan to arrive early and visit the LDS Family History Library and the Salt Lake Tabernacle on Wednesday.