Graham, Billy (William Franklin Graham) [key], 1918–2018, American evangelist, b. Charlotte, N.C., grad. Wheaton College (B.A., 1943). Graham was ordained a minister in the Southern Baptist Church (1939), was the pastor of a Chicago church (his first and last pastorate), and in 1944 became an evangelist for the American Youth for Christ movement. In 1949 he received national attention for an extended evangelical campaign in Los Angeles. He subsequently made preaching tours (for which he popularized the term “crusade”) in most major U.S. cities and in Europe, Africa, South America, Asia, Australia, and Russia. His reputation made him a favored guest of politicians and presidents. Graham, who in his preaching consistently stressed personal conversion and scriptural authority, was identified with the conservative Protestant movement known as neo-evangelicalism (see fundamentalism) and was to a large degree responsible for establishing it as part of the American mainstream. He also co-founded the journal Christianity Today. The Billy Graham Evangelical Association, founded in 1950, publishes Decision magazine and produces programs for radio, television, and screen. Graham retired as head of the association in 2000, and held his final crusade in 2004.
See his autobiography, Just as I Am (1997); biographies by W. C. McLaughlin (1960), M. Frady (1979), and W. Martin (1991); studies by S. P. Miller (2009) and G. Wacker (2014).
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