Recently, I've been hearing things about Billy Graham that have impressed me more and more with his "holiness." That's not a term that usually applied to our Evangelical brothers, but articles like this one from Christianity Today about Graham's stand against segregation in 1952 offer a perspective on the man that I didn't know before:
Graham chose to make his stand in the heart of the segregated South. He initially agreed to segregate the audience during his 1952 campaign in Jackson, Mississippi, but rejected Governor Hugh White's suggestion to conduct separate meetings for blacks. Meanwhile, Graham prepared to make a much bolder statement. Holding segregated events had always struck him as wrong, but he'd never chosen to take decisive action—until now. Walking toward the ropes that separated blacks and whites, Graham tore them down.
Mystified and uncomfortable ushers tried to put the ropes back up. Graham personally stopped them.
This symbolically powerful gesture marked a major ministry watershed. He never again led a segregated campaign.
This seems to be consistent with his interest in ecumenical cooperation with Catholics in 1992.
I don't know much about Graham. I've always kind of dismissed him as belonging to the sphere in which Billy Sunday, Elmer Gantry and Jimmy Swaggert reside, which I'll concede is probably unfair to Graham and Sunday, but I'm a child of my times. Now, though, that Graham is approaching the end of his life, and I start reading about things like his stand against segregation, I'm beginning to wonder what I missed.
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