Billy Graham Bio
William Franklin Graham Jr. Billy Graham was an American evangelical Christian pastor. In the middle to late 20th century, he became well-known worldwide for his broadcast and live sermons. He was an American evangelist, an ordained Southern Baptist minister and an advocate for civil rights. Graham was a well-known evangelical Christian figure in the US for the course of his six-decade career.
Billy Graham Wife
Ruth Bell, a Wheaton classmate whose parents were Presbyterian missionaries in China and Graham were married on August 13, 1943.Ruth passed away at the age of 87 on June 14, 2007. Their marriage lasted for nearly 64 years.
Billy Graham Kids
Billy and his wife had five kids. Franklin Graham (b. 1952), president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and president and CEO of the international relief organization Samaritan’s Purse; Virginia Leftwich (Gigi) Graham (b. 1945), inspirational speaker and author; Anne Graham Lotz (b. 1948), leader of AnGeL ministries and Nelson Edman Graham (b. 1958), a pastor who oversees East Gates Ministries International, which distributes Christian literature in China.
Graham left behind five children, 19 grandchildren (including Will Graham and Tullian Tchividjian), 41 great-grandchildren, and six great-great-grandchildren when he passed away in 2018 at the age of 99.
Billy Graham Net Worth
Billy Graham had an estimated net worth of $25 million at the time of his death in 2018 according to Celebrity Net Worth. He was a Southern Baptist who became well-known after his sermons were aired on radio and television networks across the nation and eventually the globe.
Billy Graham Cause of Death
Billy started to experience substation vision, hearing and balance loss in 2010 at the age of 91 years old. At the age of 99 years old, he passed away from natural causes at his Montreat, North Carolina, home on February 21, 2018.
He was the first religious leader to be given this honor and the fourth private citizen in American history to rest in state in the U.S. Capitol rotunda in Washington, D.C. On March 2, 2018, a private funeral service was conducted. He was laid to rest next to his spouse in the Billy Graham Library’s prayer garden.
His pine plywood coffin, which had a wooden cross nailed to its top, was handcrafted in 2006 by murderers serving sentences at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. His son Franklin Graham had placed the order after touring the facility and witnessing the inmates hard at work.
Billy Graham Early Life
Billy was born on November 7, 1918, in the downstairs bedroom of a farmhouse near Charlotte, North Carolina. He was the oldest of four children born to Morrow (née Coffey) and dairy farmer William Franklin Graham Sr., of Scots-Irish ancestry. Along with his younger brother Melvin Thomas and two younger sisters, Catherine Morrow and Jean, Graham grew up on the family dairy farm.
The family moved from their white frame home to a newly constructed red brick house when he was nine years old, a distance of roughly 75 yards (69 m). His parents reared him as an Associate Reformed Presbyterian. Graham went to the Grammar School at Sharon. He picked up reading at a young age and was particularly fond of Tarzan and other boy’s books.
He would give the well-known Tarzan yell while hanging from trees, just like Tarzan. His father claims that yelling inspired him to become a minister.When Prohibition ended in December 1933, at the age of 15, he and his sister Catherine were made to drink beer by their father until they became ill. The two siblings avoided alcohol and drugs for the remainder of their lives as a result of this creating such an aversion.
Ministry Career
Billy worked as a pastor for several churches across the nation following his time in college. From 1943 to 1944, he served as the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Western Springs, Illinois. In 1945, he started a radio show called Songs in the Night. He was 29 years old when he was appointed president of Northwestern Bible College in Minneapolis in 1948, serving in that capacity until his resignation in 1952. He set up circus tents in a parking lot in Los Angeles for his now-famous crusades, or revival meetings, in 1949. The eight-week long crusades received extensive coverage in the national media. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, he established the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in 1950.
The civil rights movement quickly spread across the country. Billy was immediately motivated to support the cause even though he had never given the plight of African Americans much thought. He started declining to talk or show up at segregated events. In 1955, he became involved in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which led to his friendship with Martin Luther King Jr. Billy asked Dr. King to accompany him in 1957 for a sixteen-week Christian program at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Over 2.3 million people visited this 16-week event from all over the nation, helping to bring Dr. King and the Civil Rights movement into the public eye.
Despite their close friendship, the two had several disagreements that led to arguments, especially regarding the Vietnam War. Following King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech, which criticized US involvement in Vietnam, Graham attacked him and other critics of foreign policy. The two stayed close despite their differences, and they went to the Baptist World Congress of the Baptist World Alliances together in the middle of the 1960s. On multiple occasions when MLK was arrested during protests, Billy personally posted bail for Dr. King. Graham led integration campaigns in Birmingham, Alabama in 1964 and once more in 1965 following the violence that followed the first march from Selma to Montgomery.
Graham’s principal strategy involved extending his reach into the secular world in the capacity of a “bridge builder.” He once made an appearance as a guest on a 1969 Woody Allen TV special, engaging the comedian in a lighthearted discussion about religious issues.
Graham had a desire to promote evangelism globally. During the Cold War, he made peace-calling trips across Eastern Europe. He declined to travel to South Africa in the days of apartheid until the country’s government permitted integrated audience seating. In 1973 he went on his first crusade there. Additionally, he wrote to Nelson Mandela while the latter was imprisoned for 27 years. He used outdoor soccer fields as the venues for his Mission England summer sermon series in the United Kingdom in 1984.
He made appearances in China in 1988 and North Korea in 1992. Graham’s biggest event in North America took place on Manhattan’s Central Park’s Great Lawn in 1991. An estimated 250,000 individuals attended the event. Graham received an invitation to conduct a service at Washington National Cathedral three days following the 9/11 attacks. Along with other current and former leaders, President George W. Bush attended the service. He organized the “Festival of Hope” in 2006 while Hurricane Katrina was still wreaking havoc in New Orleans. On November 7, 2013, Graham prepared a final public sermon titled “My Hope America,” which was played across the nation and around the world and released on DVD.
In addition, Billy Graham had a personal relationship with every sitting president he saw during his lifetime and served as an official spiritual advisor to a number of presidents, including Nixon and Eisenhower. Furthermore, he was frequently invited to important occasions by the Royal Family and enjoyed a close relationship with Queen Elizabeth II.
Billy Graham financed, planned, and sponsored large-scale training conferences for Christian evangelists over his career. Billy’s sermons have reportedly been heard by over 2.2 billion people on radio and television during his lifetime. More than thirty books, a magazine, and a satellite network that reaches hundreds of millions of people worldwide have been produced by his organization.
