Billy Graham: 10 Fascinating Facts About 'America's Pastor'
Billy Graham was friends with Martin Luther King Jr. and championed desegregation
Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr. were close friends who boldly took a stand to end segregation in the United States.
Graham made history in the early 1950s by demanding that ropes separating blacks and whites be taken down at one of his crusades in the South. When the usher refused to do it, Graham took the ropes down himself. Graham's 1953 Chattanooga Crusade was the first to be fully integrated from the planning stages.
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Preaching in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1973, Graham said, "Christ belongs to all people. He belongs to the whole world. ... I reject any creed based on hate ... Christianity is not a white man's religion, and don't let anybody ever tell you that it's white or black."
