Billy Grahm and Martin Luther King!

Billy Graham posters are all over NYC, for his last Crusade here. It will be in Flushing Park, Queens.I am not sure If I will attend or not! I have seen signs already defaced and spit on. Being in such a liberal city, which claims diversity, but so willing to tear down and destroy posters, is mind shaking! I watched him do an interview with Larry King Live, he seems to be a very humble man. He said in the interview that his wife was ill, and that she and he had nurses. Well I think Billy Graham will be die very soon, he seems much to old to still be around. He raised over 80 million for the Tsunami relief effort, which knocked me to the floor, when I heard him say it. While interviewing Billy Graham said, he group up playing and having fun with black children. He said his father hired 1 white poor family and 3 black family for the family farm. He aslo madfe many black friends in college.

This is a simple copy and paste article from Christianity Today, on Billy Graham's race relations with African Americans.

Harlem and Beyond
Graham further irked some Southern fundamentalists by inviting Martin Luther King Jr. to give an opening prayer at the crusade. "A great social revolution is going on in the United States today," Graham said as he introduced King. "Dr. King is one of its leaders, and we appreciate his taking time out of his busy schedule to come and share this service with us tonight."

This show of solidarity was lost on no one. Fundamentalist patriarch Bob Jones Sr. fired back to defend segregation against King and warn Graham of the consequences of associating with the civil-rights leader. "Dr. Graham has declared emphatically that he would not hold a meeting anywhere, North or South, where the colored people and the white people would be segregated in the auditorium," Jones said, "and I do not think any time in the foreseeable future the good Christian colored people and the good Christian white people would want to set aside an old established social and religious custom."

Even though Graham's New York City meetings obviously weren't segregated, during the first few nights of the crusade, critics and supporters alike noticed that the audiences looked more like a cross-section of Middle America than the city's diverse streets. Lamenting the absence of African Americans, Graham decided to preach where the blacks lived?Harlem. Later, at a similar event in Brooklyn, Graham for the first time voiced his support for civil rights legislation. Though Graham focused his efforts on spiritual change and emphasized the necessity of inward transformation, he also lobbied for institutional reform.

Graham's foray into Harlem accomplished the goal of attracting blacks to hear the evangelist's message. It also sparked the beginning of a historic collaboration. Two Harlem rally organizers were close friends and advisers to King. Together with King, they huddled with Graham in private strategy meetings and even swapped dreams of conducting joint evangelistic crusades. The union was not to be. King's approach was too political for Graham's taste, and they agreed to seek change in separate spheres.

The paths of Graham's and King's aides crossed again in 1962 while Graham conducted a crusade in Chicago. Graham's media adviser, Walter Bennett, offered advice to a couple of King's senior aides. Bennett deconstructed their entire approach to event organization and media relations. He warned that King would burn out if the minister continued his break-neck pace of speaking at small churches before modest audiences. Bennett suggested that King should bide his time and gear up for fewer, more spectacular events. At least some of the advice must have stuck. One year later King exhibited exceptional media savvy and organizational acumen during his defining moment, the March on Washington.

Historians will continue to debate the degree of direct influence Graham's 1957 New York City crusade had on discrediting liberal theology, marginalizing fundamentalism, and broadening the appeal of King's civil rights message. But there is no doubt the crusade witnessed a historic confluence of these significant trends that shaped contemporary evangelicalism and 20th-century American culture.


http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/papers/vol4/570831-002-To_Billy_Graham.htm