Billy Graham and the Black Community

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on February 2, 2009

This booklet chronicles Billy Graham’s relationship with the black community. Published in 1973 by Graham’s World Wide Publications and edited by Decision magazine staff, it includes pictures, quotes and sermon excerpts. Howard Jones and Ralph Bell, associate evangelists on Graham’s team, explain in the forward that the purpose of the booklet is to express “what the ministry of the Billy Graham Team means to Black America.”

It outlines Graham’s strong stance against segregation, his efforts to include blacks on his team, his friendship with Martin Luther King Jr. and his 1960 tour of Africa. While it’s certainly representative of Graham’s work and message, it comes off as an odd bit of PR. It probably had more context 35 years ago, but today a booklet exhorting how “Franklin Graham Loves Latinos” would seem a bit patronizing.

Still, it is an accurate record of Graham’s stand for civil rights:

“Christians should banish Jim Crow from their midst for one reason primarily: because it is right to do so. Race discrimination is a blatant denial of the fundamental gospel we preach and profess. As Christians, we must dare to obey the commandments of love, and leave the consequences in God’s hands. … The rift must be healed by Christians working in love.

“Men and women of religious conviction should declare themselves firmly on the race question—not with inflammatory words but with creative and conciliatory action. But we professing Christians have difficulty doing this because our commitment is so shallow. We refuse to let him awaken in us that deep love and concern for others which reach across all barriers in response to the commandment, ‘Love thy neighbor.’ When we do, we usually discover it is easier than we had thought.” (Reader’s Digest, August 1960)

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.”

Martin Luther King Jr. & Billy Graham

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on January 13, 2009

Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is often quoted as declaring, “Eleven o’clock Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America.” While King frequently used the line, he was actually quoting a 1950s Reader’s Digest article on racism written by Billy Graham.

Graham took an early and strong stand for civil rights, insisting on holding integrated crusades in Jackson, Miss., as early as 1952 (two years before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case). During a 1953 crusade in Chatanooga, Tenn., Billy Graham himself tore down ropes diving white and black sections.

“My action caused the head usher to resign in anger on the spot,” Billy said in his 1997 autobiography Just As I Am, “But I did not back down.”

Continue reading »