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Q. How did Billy Graham make blacks more welcome at his crusades?

A. In 1957, Billy's 16-week Crusade in New York City was drawing huge crowds. But concerned that the meetings were "too white," he decided to recruit a black preacher for his team. A couple of friends directed him to me. When I arrived, Billy gave me a big hug and said, "Howard, we need you. I don't know how to tackle this thing."

When the news broke that Billy was adding a black man to his team, some white ministers strongly objected. Others threatened to withhold their financial support. But he told me, "I don't care what they say, Howard. I'm going through with this if you'll go through it with me."

He told me that three years earlier he'd promised God he'd never again preach to segregated audiences. At one meeting, he shocked the organizers by personally taking down the ropes that divided the crowd by race.

How did you advise Graham?

"If blacks aren't coming to your meetings," I said, "you need to go where they are."

So Billy asked me to set up meetings for him in the black sections of the city. I agreed. Thousands of African-Americans turned out for the meetings in Harlem and Brooklyn; hundreds raised their hands to receive Christ as Savior. Now blacks began to attend the Madison Square Garden meetings. What's more, Cliff Barrows asked Ethel Waters to sing. Her rendering of "His Eye Is on the Sparrow" brought the house down. And Billy asked Martin Luther King Jr. to lead in a prayer.

Howard O. Jones was the first African-American preacher to join Graham's team.

Adapted from Gospel Trailblazer (Moody Publishers, 2003) by permission.

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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