Billy Graham is one of the most prominent evangelists of twentiethcentury America. In the course of his life, he has preached to more than
200 million people across the globe. He was included for five decades in
the Gallup Poll’s list of the “Ten Most Admired Men in the World.”
Graham was born on November 17, 1918, to a religious couple who
ran a dairy farm in North Carolina. He was interested in baseball and
hoped to join the professional ranks. At the age of sixteen, Graham experienced a religious conversion, and by 1938 he believed God had
called him to preach. His commitment to his faith was unswerving, and
throughout his years at the Florida Bible Institute, he preached on street
corners, in small churches, and at mission services. Graham earned a degree in anthropology from Wheaton College in
Illinois. The Wheaton years marked two important events in the
preacher’s life: he decided at that point to take the Bible as the infallible
word of God, and he met classmate Ruth Bell. The two married soon
after graduation, and she remained his dedicated partner until her death
in 2007. They had five children, nineteen grandchildren, and twentyeight great-grandchildren.
Graham became a full-time evangelist for Youth for Christ
International, a job that required him to tour the country conducting
meetings. Because America had just celebrated a victorious conclusion to
World War II (1939–45), church membership and interest in religion
was on the rise. So, too, were the number of evangelists, many of whom
were not truly dedicated to serve in a religious sense. As one religious
scandal after another occurred, Graham and his team managed to avoid
the pitfalls that often led to the toppling of a ministry.
In 1949, Graham scheduled a series of revival meetings in Los
Angeles, California. These missions, which took place in circus tents set
up in parking lots, lasted eight weeks, though they had been scheduled
for just three. The popularity of the missions was largely a result of massive media coverage by newspapers owned by media mogul William
Randolph Hearst (1863–1951). It was during this period that Graham
became a national religious figure.
From 1948 to 1952, Graham was president of Minnesota’s
Northwestern College. He established the Billy Graham Evangelistic
Association in 1950, and his ministries included a radio program that
lasted for more than fifty years, a newspaper column, a magazine, and
even a movie production studio, World Wide Pictures.
Graham’s ministries kept him in the spotlight. He took the missions
overseas to London for twelve weeks, and continued touring Europe,
where he preached to massive crowds. He then spent another sixteen
weeks in New York City, where he preached to more than two million
people. Graham spoke of the evils of segregation, and his friend, civil
rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968), joined him at the
pulpit during the mission. This 1957 New York City Crusade became
the first ever to be broadcast on network television. By the late 1990s, his
televised crusades reached sixty million viewers each year.
Graham served as spiritual advisor to an array of U.S. presidents, including John F. Kennedy (1917–1963; served 1961–63) and Gerald Ford (1913–2006; served 1974–77). President George W. Bush (1946–;
served 2001–) called him “America’s Pastor.” Graham gave sermons after
some of the most devastating tragedies on American soil, including the
Oklahoma City federal building bombing in 1995 and the September
11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The preacher attended his last crusade in
2006, along with son Franklin. This mission, called the “Festival of
Hope,” was held in New Orleans, Louisiana, which was recovering from
the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina. In all, Graham had conducted more than forty-one evangelistic missions since 1948.
In his later years, Graham has suffered from Parkinson’s disease and
other ailments. He has spent his retirement years in Montreat, North Carolina.