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The Ripple Effects of Ministry

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nickname which King asked only his closest friends to call him. Following King's<br />

assassination in 1968, Graham mourned that the US had lost "a social leader and a<br />

prophet". In private, Graham advised King and other members <strong>of</strong> the Southern Christian<br />

Leadership Conference (SCLC).<br />

Despite their friendship, tensions between Graham and King emerged in 1958 when the<br />

sponsoring committee <strong>of</strong> a crusade which took place in San Antonio, Texas on July 25<br />

arranged for Graham to be introduced by that state's segregationist governor, Price<br />

Daniel. On July 23, King sent a letter to Graham and informed him that allowing Daniel<br />

to speak at a crusade which occurred the night before the state's Democratic Primary<br />

"can well be interpreted as your endorsement <strong>of</strong> racial segregation and<br />

discrimination." Graham's advisor, Grady Wilson, replied to King that "even though we<br />

do not see eye to eye with him on every issue, we still love him in Christ." Though<br />

Graham's appearance with Daniel dashed King's hopes <strong>of</strong> holding joint crusades with<br />

Graham in the Deep South, the two still remained friends and King told a Canadian<br />

television audience the following year that Graham had taken a "very strong stance<br />

against segregation." Graham and King would also come to differ on the Vietnam<br />

War. After King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech denouncing US intervention in Vietnam,<br />

Graham castigated him and others for their criticism <strong>of</strong> US foreign policy.<br />

By the middle <strong>of</strong> 1960, King and Graham traveled together to the Tenth Baptist World<br />

Congress <strong>of</strong> the Baptist World Alliance. In 1963, Graham posted bail for King to be<br />

released from jail during the Birmingham campaign, according to Long (2008), and the<br />

King Center acknowledged that Graham had bailed King out <strong>of</strong> jail during the Albany<br />

Movement, although historian Steven Miller told CNN he could not find any pro<strong>of</strong> <strong>of</strong> the<br />

incident. Graham held integrated crusades in Birmingham, Alabama, on Easter 1964 in<br />

the aftermath <strong>of</strong> the bombing <strong>of</strong> the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, and toured<br />

Alabama again in the wake <strong>of</strong> the violence that accompanied the first Selma to<br />

Montgomery march in 1965.<br />

Following his death, former SCLC <strong>of</strong>ficial and future Atlanta politician Andrew<br />

Young acknowledged his friendship with Graham and stated that Graham did in fact<br />

travel with King to the 1965 European Baptist Convention. Young also claimed that<br />

Graham had <strong>of</strong>ten invited King to his crusades in the Northern states.<br />

Graham's faith prompted his maturing view <strong>of</strong> race and segregation; he told a member<br />

<strong>of</strong> the Ku Klux Klan that integration was necessary primarily for religious reasons:<br />

"<strong>The</strong>re is no scriptural basis for segregation," Graham argued. "<strong>The</strong> ground at the foot<br />

<strong>of</strong> the cross is level, and it touches my heart when I see whites standing shoulder to<br />

shoulder with blacks at the cross."<br />

Lausanne Movement<br />

<strong>The</strong> friendship between Graham and John Stott led to a further partnership in<br />

the Lausanne Movement, <strong>of</strong> which Graham was a founder. It built on Graham's 1966<br />

World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin. In collaboration with Christianity Today,<br />

Page 87 <strong>of</strong> 201

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