1957 piece on Rev. Billy Graham's efforts supporting integration

1. Preaching in Harlem, Billy Graham
calls race relations problem "most
burning social question of our day."
NO
COLOR
LINE
HEAVEN
-BILLY GRAHAM—
First Negro member of Graham team,
Rev. Howard Jones (c), talks to
Rev. Thomas Kilgore and evangehst.
Southern-born evangelist declares war on bigotry
THE MOST vulnerable spot in Chris-
tianity and democracy was limned
many years ago by eloquent slaves who
gave tongue to the spiritual, AU God's
Children Got Wings. Bursting through
the bonds of color and condition, they
celebrated a day when there would be
no more white sections in churches, when
there would be no more Negroes and
whites, when all men would stand equal
before their Creator.
And now, hundreds of invocations and
lynchings later, the same cry has been
taken up by Billy Graham, the evangelist
whose grandfathers shouldered arms in
the Confederate Army. Although he was
born, raised and educated in the South,
he is underscoring the old warning that
there is no color line in Heaven. From
that fact, he draws a corollary: there
should be no color line on earth. And,
like the slaves, he is saying that "every-
body talking abont Ileaven ain't going
there."
"There are a lot of segregationists," he
says, "who are going to be sadly disillu-
sioned when they get to Heaven—if they
get there."
The blonde, blue-eyed evangelist, who
recently completed an integrated crusade
in Madison Square Garden, told EBONY:
that Ameriea needs a revival to wipe
away racial discrimination. "The sign is
on the wall," he says. "This is our crisis."
Coniinued on Nexf Page 99

2. Actress Ethel Waters was one of Liiany ^ci;rocs who paificipated in uianinintli New
York crusade. She sang in l,5()()-voice crusade choir three times a week. I-'anied ac-
tress said Billy was "sent from Heaven to wake up New York and deliver it from evil."
NO COLOR LINE IN HEAVEN co..,wd
"I tell you," he warns whites, "we are going to have to have a revival
that will wipe away racial discrimination, that because a man's skin
may he a little different color than yours you think yourself superior.
I tell you there is no superior race in God's sight."
The revival, he says, should stress three things:
1. That we must live by the principle of the Golden Rule.
2. That racial prejudice looms as one of the most burning issues in
the destiny of the United States.
3. That God is color-blind and that prejudice based on skin-color
is sinful.
In the world to eome, he points out, there will be no place for Wliite
Gitizens Gouncñs, Ku Klux Klans and "for white only" signs. "Some
people," he has said, "are not going to get to heaven because they
would not feel at home."
"For everyone," Graham continues, "there is tliis solemn warning.
One day we shall stand before the judgment of God and He has told
us in advance what one of the questions will be on that great day of
examination. Jesus made it clear that what we shall have to answer
for is the way in which we have treated our neighbors. The horror
of discrimination will never be fully realized until we remember the
sobering words of our Lord; 'As you did it not to one of the least
of these, you did it not to me.' If through blindness or overt treachery
we err, it is Ghrist we insult and humiliate."
"Our concern since God laid the matter on our hearts some years ago
has been not so much to talk as to act, to set an example which might
open new paths and stir the consciences of many. There is no segrega-
OblivioUS of race, Negro and white members of choir clutch same song book a
lift tlieir voices in praise of Lord. Members of choir were drawn from churche.s ini
New York area. Some 50 Negro churches contributed singers to integrated choir,
tion in our crusades, even in the South. A man who was to be an usher
for our crusade in a southern city heard of this policy and called the
office to verify it. Ts it tme that Negroes are coming and can sit
wherever they please?' he asked. The answer was, 'Yes.' And the man
retorted angrily. 'Then to hell with the revival.' But the story doesn't
end there. He was drawn to the meetings by the Spirit of God and was
converted. He apologized for what he had said and came to work as
an usher side by side with Negro ushers and serving those who came of
both races."
In recent months, Graham has repeatedly attacked racial bias in his
meetings around the country. It was not always thus. Graham himself
admits that he lost his traditional southern views about race in recent
years. He attributes his concern about the question to two things~a
conviction, gained from constant study 'of the Bible, that Ghrist op-
posed and fought racial bigotry and a conviction, intensified by world
travel, that prejudice gives America "one of its greatest black eyes"
in the view of nations balancing the sincerity of democracy and
communism.
"I have been growing in understanding of the Christian principle of
the brotherhood of all men under the fatherhood of God," Graham
admits. "In 1953-after the Supreme Gourt desegregation edict was
handed down, I decided definitely that segregation was wrong."
Long before the high court decision, however, Graham was on his
way to getting religion about racial justice. He found a precedent for
his own crusading in a passage of the Gospel, according to St. Luke.
"It tells about the time that Jesus preached in his home town and
the people turned from a friendly croviid into a murderous mob," he
declares. "I asked myself what made them change. They changed
Executive committee of New York crusade included two Negroes, Rev. Richard Hilde-
brand, pastor of Bethel AME Church (3rd fr. 1.) and Rev. Gardner Taylor (not
shown ). On opening night of the crusade, Rev. Hildebrand delivered the invocation.
100
"New" Billy Graham pn^itciics on race and salvation to large audience in Harlem.
Graham told group that Jesus often preached against prejudice, but was "sneered
and jeered" at and labeled a heretic. "" >judices," he added, "all stem from sin.
Confiiiued on' Page 102

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Negro ushers help visitors find seats at Madison Square Garden. Ushers, who
were of all races, were drawn from Ushers Assoeiation of Greater New York.
"We must wipe away the false idea of racial superiority," the evangelist says.
NO COLOR LINE IN HEAVEN
because Jesus dared to attack their prejudices. He dared to inject
the race question into his sermon and these people, filled with their
superiority complex, tried to kill him."
Another Biblical incident that prodded Billy Graham's thinking is
found in John-the story of the Samaritan woman who met Jesus at
Jacob's well. "This points up the racial strife which existed between
ihe Jews and Samaritans in Christ's day, as it exists in America today,
even among church people," Graham observes. He says: "Though
Christ was primarily concerned with the redemption of the individual,
he did not hedge on the race question . . . He constantly emphasized
neighbor-love and every violation of it is a sin. Jesus put no color bar
on the Golden Rule."
"Jesus," Graham continues, "broke down the barriers. He lauded
the faith of the Gentiles. He lived for days among the despised Samari-
tans. He said that many would come from the East and West and sit
down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom. He said that
when he was lifted up he would draw all men unto himself."
Graham believes that America is on the brink of moral disaster. "Our
nation is threatened," he says, "as it has never been threatened since
the Civil War." He adds: "We need anti-segregation legislation in this
country, but unless it is supplemented by love of God it would be
nothing but eold war."
Jesus Christ, Graham holds, is the light that can lead men over the
shoals of race hatred to the harbor of brotherhood. "Now when a man
is bom again by faith in Jesus Christ," he adds, "the Bible says he is a
new creation. He leaves the family of Satan and comes into the family
of God. One of the signs that this conversion is genuine is a genuine
love for all his brothers in Christ, for in Christ all divisions vanish. If
a man lacks this Christian love, no matter how orthodox may be his
doctrine, it is safe to doubt whether he has ever had a real personal
encounter with God." Tlie evangelist who believes Negroes must share
the responsibility for discrimination says: "We are going to have to
come where we love each other as neighbors and where we look
through tbe eyes of Jesus at this thing."
If his continuing search for truth in Scripture had not been enough,
Billy Graham's views on race were fortified by experiences during
world travel. "After my travels in North Africa, India, the Far East
and Western Europe, I arrived at the basic conclusion that America
as a nation has a tremendous responsibility in today's world-that we
are living in a fish bowl with the whole world looking in-that our
racial tensions are causing some of the people of the world to turn
away from us, to doubt that we have the moral and spiritual qualities
to lead the Western World in this desperate hour. Race prejudice is a
eanoer eating at the heart and core of American life and, therefore,
threatening to eclipse the dawn of peace and justice for all humanity
. . . It is high time that we came to the foot of the Cross. It is high
time that we told the truth-that there is no superiority based on skin
Confinued on Page lO^
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NO COLOR LINE IN HEAVEN con.w.f
color-that we must love each other as neighbors—that this is the way
of Christianity."
Another ckie to his racial conversion is found in a letter he wrote to
his wife in 1954, at the height of his London crusade. He interrupted
the letter to go outside and listen to a street-corner meeting of the
Salvation Army. Upon his return, he wrote: "They were conducting
a meeting on Oxford Street. Suddenly, I looked up and there, on the
opposite eorner, stood the Negro stripteaser who is staying at our
hotel. She is a striking looking girl who came over on the boat. She
is rather aloof and I can imagine why. With a hotel full of us preachers
and what have you, she probably feels—'Ye Jews have no dealings with
us Samaritans.' I ean't help liking her. I watched her closely. She never
moved. She drank it in. Then they closed and she never moved. She
watched them out of sight. I started back slowly, hoping perhaps she
would catch up and I could just pass the time of day. But she kept
behind me and I could hear her singing in a throaty voice, What A
Friend We Have In Jesus. It must have stirred memories in her heart.
We never know when we are witnessing for Christ ju.st who is listening."
Looking back over similar incidents like this, Graham says, "My
earlier meetings were segregated. I was reared in the South and had
never thought it through. But I hope that through the years, I have
grown in many directions. Our last Southern crusades were on a non-
segregated basis and we did not have one incident. Where men are
standing at the foot of the Cross, there are no racial barriers."
He recalls, with a great deal of satisfaction, an incident that oc-
euned near the end of his integrated crusade in Louisville, Kentucky.
A Negro minister told him: "I want you to know that one of the
greatest experiences I have ever had in my hfe was standing outside
the Coliseum and having my people come up to me to say, 'Pastor,
is it true that we can sit anywhere we like?' I raised my hand, made
a wide sweep of the auditorium and said, 'Anywhere.' "
"There were," Billy recalls, "tears in his eyes."
"The great need in America," Craham concludes, "is not for more
guns or more atom bombs. It is for men and women who have been
transformed by the power of Jesus Christ and are going out living dedi-
cated lives for Christ in the offices and in the factories and in the shops,
taking their stand for the Lord Jesus Christ no matter what the eost
may be. It may be the race problem that you take your stand on; it
may be some problem in your local community; it's taking the witness
for the Lord Jesus Christ no matter what it eosts."
Blonde, blue-eyed evangelist has humched a frontal assault on projiLclicc and big-
otry. He plans to hold a "cfLisade" in Africa. The preaclicr says he has re-
ceived stream of abusive letters from racists. "I just ignore them," he says.
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