Graham, Billy

Graham, Billy (1918–), evangelist.Born on a farm outside Charlotte, North Carolina, William Franklin Graham Jr. became the most famous and successful evangelist of the twentieth century. Graham preached the Christian gospel in person to more than eighty million people and reached countless millions more by radio, television, films, books, and newspaper columns.

A 1943 graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois, Graham gained experience and exposure in Youth for Christ International during the mid‐1940s. A 1949 tent revival in Los Angeles first propelled him into public view. Hugely successful revivals, his Hour of Decision radio program, numerous books, and periodic telecasts brought worldwide popularity and influence during the 1950s. His revival “crusades” and international conferences fostered ecumenical cooperation, particularly among conservative Christians known as evangelicals. Christianity Today magazine, which he founded in 1956, remained the flagship publication of the evangelical movement in the early twenty‐first century. His association with presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Bill Clinton encouraged religious conservatives to enter the political arena, despite warnings he sounded in later years regarding the perils of such ventures. Graham's connections and unique stature enabled him to overcome many formidable barriers, seen most dramatically in a series of increasingly successful forays behind the Iron Curtain between 1978 and, after the breakup of the communist bloc, 1992. By such actions as refusing to preach to racially segregated audiences, hiring an African American as an Associate Evangelist, inviting Martin Luther King Jr. to appear at a crusade service, and calling on his audiences to espouse racial equality, Graham helped break down resistance to integration in the American South and elsewhere.

Graham and his wife, Ruth, reared five children, all of whom entered some form of Christian work. In 1995, his son Franklin was named leader‐designate of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Among many accolades and prizes, Graham received the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1983) and the Congressional Gold Medal (1996).
See also Protestantism; Revivalism.

Bibliography

William Martin , A Prophet with Honor: The Billy Graham Story, 1991.
Billy Graham , Just As I Am, 1997.

William Martin