A Prophet with Honor

by William C. Martin

  Graham’s insistence on individual rather than social change doubtless gave comfort to advocates of racial gradualism and massive resistance alike since it placed the onus of conflict on those who wanted to change the system, but it was not a hypocritical dodge. He genuinely believed he was right, and he began ever so gingerly, to suggest it was time for individual Christians to start accepting the implications of a gospel whose central assertion is that Christ died for all people, whatever their color. On the Hour of Decision he declared that for America to remain strong, its people would have to affirm and demonstrate confidence in one another, “race with race, creed with creed, color with color.” Before his 1952 Washington crusade he announced there would be no discrimination in seating arrangements, and when liberal Washington clergymen criticized his lack of a coherent social message, he replied that at conversion “you become obedient to spiritual laws. You begin to love persons of all races, regardless of the color of their skin. It’s just love, love, love—love for all people of the world.” In Houston a few weeks later, he acceded to the local committee’s desire for segregated seating but set aside a shady portion of Rice University stadium for blacks instead of assigning them to the less desirable sunny section, as was customary. In addition, he held a special service, this time at their request, for nearly five hundred black leaders, whom he warned not to make their problems worse by turning them over to “a gang of international bandits.” Then, at the 1952 Southern Baptist Convention, he startled some of his brethren by asserting that it was the Christian duty of every Baptist college to welcome academically qualified Negro students. “The moral stature of the Baptist people,” he warned, “can rise no higher than the policies of the Baptist educators.”

  Graham clearly felt an obligation to speak against segregation, but he also believed his first duty was to appeal to as many people as possible. Sometimes he found these two convictions difficult to reconcile. That summer in Jackson, Mississippi, in the heart of the black belt, he accepted segregated seating but defied Governor Hugh White’s request that he hold entirely separate services for blacks. During that crusade a white minister who had been president of a black college made him understand that his growing prominence meant he could not avoid such public stands. “Human justice is on their side,” the man said, “but more than that, religion is, too. You’re taking leadership in the field of evangelism, and this is something you’re going to have to face.” Near the close of the crusade, Graham took another step by not only proclaiming that God’s love knows no racial barriers but by identifying Jackson’s two greatest social problems as illegal liquor (Mississippi was still dry) and segregation. With respect to the latter, he said, “There is no scriptural basis for segregation. It may be there are places where such is desirable to both races, but certainly not in the church.” He acknowledged that he accepted it in his southern crusades, where local custom demanded, but said it made him uncomfortable to do so. “The ground at the foot of the cross is level,” he said, and “it touches my heart when I see whites stand shoulder to shoulder with blacks at the cross.” These statements stirred a chorus of amens and hallelujahs from the black section and applause from the editors of the Christian Century, who predicted his forthrightness would hurt him in the South. Both responses were correct, and when segregationists criticized him, he immediately backtracked. He told the local newspaper, “I feel that I have been misinterpreted on racial segregation. We follow the existing social customs in whatever part of the country in which we minister. As far as I have been able to find in my study of the Bible, it has nothing to say about segregation or non-segregation. I came to Jackson to preach only the Bible and not to enter into local issues.” Just one day earlier, preaching the Bible required that segregation be condemned and characterized the practice as on a par with bootlegger’s moonshine, only one rung lower than immorality on the ladder of major sins. When it appeared that such a message might shrink the size of his potential audience, Graham decided it was no longer “unscriptural” but simply a “local issue” that had mischievously popped up where it did not belong. Not long afterward, he covered this fast-rising waffle with still another topping. In a letter to one of the leaders of a crusade planned for Detroit, he included a copy of the news story about his bold statements (but not the story of his “clarification”) with the comment, “I am certain this will be of interest to our colored brethren. I cannot be hypocritical on this matter. I do not preach one thing in the North and change my message in the South. This is a moral issue, and we take our stand. To take one’s stand in Mississippi is not too popular, but we had very little repercussions from this statement. Our Negro friends have attended in large numbers.”

  Graham’s behavior had not quite matched his alleged boldness, but the statement expressed truth as he wanted it to be, and that ideal pulled him along toward consistency. In March 1953, more than a year before the Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, ruled that segregated schools were unconstitutional, and more than a decade before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Graham told the sponsoring committee of his Chattanooga crusade that he could not countenance the usual practice of segregated seating. When the committee balked, he went to the crusade tabernacle and personally removed the ropes marking the section reserved for blacks. In fact, few blacks dared to move into the white sections, and many people may not have realized what Graham had done—the incident passed without comment in the local papers—but he could not know what might happen, and the gesture was significant. In Dallas a few months later, he backslid a bit by accepting the sponsoring committee’s designation of separate seating areas for blacks and whites, but ushers made no attempt to hinder the small number of blacks who chose to sit in areas reserved for whites. When a black Detroit newspaper reported the segregated arrangements in Dallas, the pastor of a Baptist church in that city informed Graham that his church would not participate in the upcoming crusade and blasted him for bowing to racist practices. Crusade director Willis Haymaker responded that Dallas law mandated segregated seating and that however much they might dislike certain laws, they felt bound to obey them. Billy Graham, he asserted, was deeply committed to improving race relations, but he intended to do it by preaching the gospel, not by breaking the law. Some black churchmen in Detroit continued to doubt Graham’s commitment, but others participated actively on various committees and were quite visible on the platform and in the choir and usher corps. Reassured and buoyed by the harmony of the meetings, Graham proclaimed that “the church must practice the Christianity it professes. The state, the sports world, and even the business field are way ahead of the church in getting together racially. And church people should be the first to step forward and practice what Christ taught—that there is no difference in the sight of God.” Racial discrimination, he warned, hurt American foreign policy and frustrated the work of Christian missionaries. Still, without explaining why secular institutions were moving more quickly toward racial harmony than was the church, or why the plight of blacks seemed particularly discouraging in that section of the country most heavily populated with born-again Christians, he reaffirmed his basic conviction that “a great spiritual revival is needed to relieve the racial and political tensions of today.” The Christian Century, though skeptical of Graham’s individualistic approach to social issues, commended him for his statements in Detroit and acknowledged his growing insistence on integrated crusades.

  While in Detroit, Graham explicitly rejected as unbiblical the racist contention that dark skin and the inferior social position of blacks derived from a curse Noah placed on Canaan, the son of Ham (Genesis 9:22–27), and were therefore part of a divinely sanctioned and unchangeable order. A few weeks later, in his syndicated column, he addressed the same issue from both a biblical and an anthropological perspective. To the question Does the Bible teach the superiority of any one race? he replied: “Definitely not. The Bible teaches that God hath made of one blood all the nations of the world. . . . Anthropologi
sts have come to two very important biological observations. First, there are no pure races. Second, there are no superior or inferior races. We know from history that all people upon contact have crossed their genetically based physical traits. We know from human anatomy that in fundamental structure all people are identical. As far as biological man is concerned, what he is is related to his cultural environment, rather than to any inherited ability or aptitude.” Then, in oblique but unmistakable fashion, he lumped racists with Nazis. “There is no ‘German Race,’” he observed, “only a German nationality. There is no ‘Aryan race,’ only an Aryan language. There is no Master Race, only a political bombast!” In Peace with God, he again indicted the church for allowing secular institutions to outshine its commitment to racial justice. “The church should have been the pacesetter,” he lamented. “The church should voluntarily be doing what the federal courts are doing by pressure and compulsion.” And they should be doing it because the Holy Spirit had transformed their hearts and their perceptions. When true Christians look at other people, they see “no color, nor class, nor condition, but simply human beings with the same longings, needs and aspirations as our own.” Billy Graham was now fully on the record against segregation and for racial equality. After the Supreme Court decision on May 17, 1954, he no longer permitted any form of enforced segregation in his meetings, even in the Deep South, though he sometimes seemed less concerned with the intrinsic injustice of racial discrimination than with the effect on his ministry’s image. Before his Nashville crusade in the fall of 1954, for example, he wrote to the crusade chairman, urging him to “keep in mind that my ministry is now worldwide, and I have to be extremely careful in everything I do. Therefore, I would suggest that Negroes be allowed to sit anywhere they like in the open-air stadium and that nothing be said one way or the other about it. It might be well if once a week you had a Negro pastor lead in prayer. . . . There will likely be only a small group of Negroes come anyway, but if they were roped off or segregated into the back, it might cause trouble.” Graham obviously felt no strong need to incorporate blacks into the crusade as he had in Detroit, and they apparently got the message. Few attended the services, and those who did, though not required to, sat where black folk usually sat in that stadium. Consistent with his pacific and conciliatory nature, Billy would always prefer decorum to bold example, and he would never be comfortable with violent protest or even with nonviolent socially disruptive measures aimed at changing the standing order. Neither, however, would he ever retreat from the higher ground he had seized.

  11

  Harringay

  None of Graham’s predecessors was able to maintain peak levels of performance and response for more than a decade. In contrast, he would hold large and successful meetings for more than forty years. Still, no crusade looms larger in the collective memory and mythos of the Graham organization than a twelve-week effort at London’s Harringay Arena in 1954. This campaign so defied expectations, so triumphed over skepticism and opposition, and so captured the attention and imagination of the English-speaking world, particularly the British Empire, that participants found it easy to believe they were living in the days foreseen in the rousing revival standard: “From vict’ry unto vict’ry / His armies shall he lead / Till ev’ry foe is vanquished / And Christ is Lord indeed.”

  The impetus for the Billy Graham Greater London Crusade, as it was officially known, came from Britain’s Evangelical Alliance, whose members came to know him during his Youth for Christ campaigns. Even within that body, the Salvation Army and Plymouth Brethren were more favorable toward him than were Baptist or Anglican Evangelicals. The official invitation came in 1952, after Graham held a large rally at Royal Albert Hall and met with nearly seven hundred clergymen at Westminster to confront their fears and reservations about a full-scale crusade. Even so, the British Council of Churches, representing the great majority of British Christians, chose not to join in the invitation, and the archbishop of Canterbury left no doubt about his reservations concerning such a campaign.

  Resistance took several forms. “His theology,” one liberal critic wrote “is fifty years behind contemporary scholarship. He gives no sign of having read any of it from the last three decades. He is completely out of step with the majority of ministers and pastors.” Strict Calvinists objected to his use of the invitation, contending that salvation is by God, not something humans can simply choose to accept or reject. And to hard-line Fundamentalists, Graham’s willingness to associate with those considered theologically unsound, which in their minds included not only most Anglicans but many members of the Evangelical Alliance, marked him as one to be shunned rather than encouraged. Also at work, of course, was a lingering streak of anti-Americanism and resistance to what many perceived as “hot gospel,” high-pressure salesmanship. This lack of broad-based support gave Graham pause, but he hoped the extensive network of friendships formed during his YFC tours would rally the support he needed. He did not expect to change the life of Britain, he admitted, but he did hope “to start a spark that may some day ignite something.”

  Determined not to let the crusade fail for lack of preparation, Graham ordered full-scale deployment of the two weapons he trusted most: prayer and publicity. Well before the crusade started, more than 18,000 people in Great Britain were praying for its success, as were thousands of Americans, including Supreme Court chief justice Earl Warren, who led “a contingent of high government officials” at a Washington send-off prayer rally for Graham. Though Billy regarded prayer as the key instrument of assault on the spiritual vacuum he professed to find in England, he provided impressive backup support from a Beavan-engineered promotional campaign so dazzling that both the Publicity Club and the Advertising Club of London named it the top advertising effort of the year, the first time an American had won either award and the first time a single campaign had won both awards. The blitz, whose £50,000 price tag astonished the crusade committee, included nearly 10,000 press announcements, almost 30,000 posters bearing the evangelist’s picture and the simple directive, “Hear Billy Graham,” and hundreds of thousands of handbills. In addition, Graham discussed the campaign thoroughly with President Eisenhower and informed crusade director Willis Haymaker that the President “not only heartily endorses it” and would be praying for its success “but is using his great influence behind the scenes to help.” Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who agreed that “Britain must have a spiritual renaissance to survive,” would also be “using his considerable prestige to help by writing letters to all of his friends and contacts in England.” Perhaps at Dulles’s recommendation, American ambassador to Great Britain, Winthrop Aldrich, promised his assistance as well.

  With prayer, publicity, and political patronage lined up in support, Graham set sail for London in February 1954. Three days before the United States reached Southampton, he learned that a crucial fourth ingredient, the press, had waded in against the tide to urge that he turn back from England’s shores. Early press response to the precrusade publicity barrage had been largely negative, filled with derisive barbs aimed at Graham’s style and substance. In a typical story, the London Evening News called him an “American hot gospel specialist” who served as “actor-manager of the show,” and declared that “like a Biblical Baedeker, he takes his listeners strolling down Pavements of Gold, introduces them to rippling-muscled Christ, who resembles Charles Atlas with a halo, then drops them abruptly into the Lake of Fire for a sample scalding.” Such appraisals stung, but they were hardly unique and not nearly so problematic as the newest charge being leveled. Now, the press claimed, Billy Graham not only had the gall to decide that England’s religious life needed reviving but had attacked a major aspect of its political life as well.

  The new charge stemmed from an organizational snafu. Because of the difficulty and expense of arranging for large auditoriums for long campaigns, and particularly because London lacked what Graham considered a satisfactory arena, he had accepted R. G. LeTourneau’s p
roposal to design and build an immense portable aluminum tabernacle (300 feet in diameter, with a seating capacity of 12,000 to 14,000), constructed of a series of concentric rings that could be hoisted, rather like an inverted collapsible camper’s cup, to form an all-weather dome. The initial cost would be high, but it would ultimately be a great money saver, and the publicity value of such a futuristic structure—plopped, for example, along the banks of the Thames like a gleaming spaceship—would be enormous. To raise money for the venture, Jerry Beavan designed an expensive oversize brochure to be sent to a small number of wealthy American backers. In describing the tabernacle’s proposed use in the London crusade, he described England as a nation that lost its historic faith during and immediately following World War II until “the churches still standing were gradually emptied.” The text left no doubt where to place the blame: “And when the war ended a sense of frustration and disillusionment gripped England and what Hitler’s bombs could not do, Socialism with its accompanying evils shortly accomplished.” When Beavan showed proofs of the brochure to a member of Parliament with ties to the Conservative party in June 1953, the MP found misspellings of several British names and a misquotation of Shakespeare. He also noted that the reference to socialism, particularly if written with a capital S, would offend members and supporters of the Labor party, which had played a key role in rebuilding Britain after the war and regarded socialism as an honorable term. As it happened, the brochure was never distributed. Buckminster Fuller’s new invention, the geodesic dome, might well have served Graham’s needs; R. G. LeTourneau’s concentric rings turned out to be less than an architectural breakthrough. During the summer of 1953, Hugh Gough, Anglican bishop of Barking and chair of the Greater London Crusade, flew to Texas to allay his doubts about the fantastic structure. As he stood in the broiling sun at LeTourneau’s Longview plant, sweat drenching his dust-stained purple dickey while he watched workmen struggle to attach the third ring to the two already in place, the entire contraption collapsed in a groaning, clanging heap. The bishop drily observed, “I say, I don’t think it is going to work.” He was right, and when he returned to London, the crusade committee made arrangements to hire Harringay Arena, a drab barnlike structure used mostly for boxing matches and located next door to a dog track in a run-down and unattractive section of North London. They feared Christian people might resist coming to the arena because of its association with gambling, but they had no better option.