Billy Graham

About Billy Graham

William Franklin Graham Jr., KBE (born November 7, 1918) better known as Billy Graham, is an evangelist and an Evangelical Christian. He has been a spiritual adviser to multiple U.S. presidents and was number seven on Gallup's list of admired people for the 20th century. He is a Southern Baptist.

Graham has preached in person to more people around the world than anyone who has ever lived. As of 1993, more than 2.5 million people had stepped forward at his crusades to "accept Jesus Christ as their personal saviour." As of 2002, Graham's lifetime audience, including radio and television broadcasts, topped two billion.

Born on a dairy farm near Charlotte, North Carolina, Billy Graham was raised in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church by his parents, Morrow Coffey and William Franklin Graham. In 1933, when Prohibition in the United States ended, Graham's father forced Graham and his sister Catherine to drink beer until they vomited, which created a lifelong aversion, in both of them, to alcohol. According to the Billy Graham Center, Billy Graham was converted in 1934 during a series of revival meetings in Charlotte which were led by evangelist Mordecai Ham. However, he was turned down for membership in a local youth group because he was "too worldly." He was persuaded to go see Ham at the urging of a local African-American who worked at the Graham farm.