Billy Graham Acting on Civil Rights

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on January 19, 2009

Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr. have a storied history, at times partners and at times at odds. But despite their disagreements they were united on the issue of civil rights for all people. Graham insisted on integrating his crusades in the early 1950s. In 1957 Graham told Ebony magazine:

“Our concern since God laid the matter on our hearts some year ago has been not so much to talk as to act, to set an example which might open new paths and stir the consciences of many. There is no segregation in our Crusades, even in the South.”

At a conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1960, Martin Luther King Jr. commented:

“Had it not been for the ministry of my good friend, Dr. Billy Graham, my own work in the civil rights movement would not have been successful as it has been.”