In 1918, a baby boy was born on a farm in North Carolina. He was named William Franklin Graham, Jr. and since his father was Bill, everyone called him Billy. As a teenage farm boy, he attended a tent revival meeting in a nearby town and came forward to accept Christ as his savior. As he attended high school and college he felt God’s increasing call for him to preach the Gospel and he discovered to his surprise that he had a gift for it.
In 1945, at the age of 27, he began to put together an evangelistic team to hold revival meetings in auditoriums and stadiums (even a circus tent on one occasion). He called the meetings crusades because he had a vision of conquering the world for Jesus Christ. With the help of local churches the services were packed and large choirs were assembled. They soon began broadcasting the services on a national radio network and the young preacher became respected and admired throughout the country.
In the midst of his success and popularity, Billy Graham did the unthinkable at that time; he made the decision that he was never again going to hold a segregated crusade. He felt so strongly that this was God’s will that in 1953 he held his first integrated three night crusade in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where more than 100,000 people of all races worshiped side by side and came forward together to accept Christ. Later that year he held an integrated crusade in Jackson, Mississippi. Satan decided he had seen enough, so in 1955, a major TV network offered Billy Graham a five year, one million dollar contract to host a daily TV show opposite Arthur Godfrey. That would have made Billy and his family financially set for life but also would have put the crusades on hold for five years (maybe forever). Billy already had commitments to hold crusades in London and New York City so he turned down that tempting offer.
In 1957, a very ambitious sixteen week summer crusade was planned for New York City. They would hold nightly services in Madison Square Garden, Yankee Stadium or Time Square. To make sure the services were well integrated, in addition to his nightly sermons; Billy preached in the largest church in Harlem and then preached to thousands in Brooklyn. One of his team heard a radio interview with Ethel Waters. When she was asked if she thought the New York City crusade would be successful, Ethel answered, “Of course it will be. God doesn’t back no flops.” Billy contacted her and invited her to a crusade meeting in Madison Square Garden to sing His Eye Is on the Sparrow and she accepted. She rededicated her life to Christ that evening. At the end of that sixteen week New York City crusade which drew an estimated 2,300,000 people not counting the huge radio and TV audiences, Billy asked Martin Luther King, Jr. how he could help with the civil rights movement and Dr. King told Billy to stay down south holding integrated crusades while he took to the streets with protest marches. So Billy held crusades all across Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas with Ethel Waters traveling with him and performing as her health permitted. If you google “ethel waters with billy graham” you will see a You Tube video of Ethel Waters singing His Eye Is On the Sparrow on Mothers’ Day at a 1975 crusade in Jackson, Mississippi. She was 78 but her voice and witness were as strong as ever. What you don’t see and hear in that video is the 90 second standing ovation she received from that multicultural crowd that would have gone on even longer if she hadn’t motioned for them to be seated.