5 Facts PBS Left Out in New Billy Graham Documentary

Billy Graham. Photo courtesy of PBS.

Billy Graham is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential evangelists of our time, known for his rousing Southern drawl and preaching that reached Christians across the globe. 

He’s the subject of a new PBS documentary, the latest in the American Experience series. The documentary serves as a complete retrospective of Graham’s life, covering from birth to death and the entire breadth of his ministry. 

With the tagline “Prayer. Politics. Power,” the documentary primarily showcases Graham’s involvement with politicians — including Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon — and how this opened the gates for the Religious Right to form, beginning with Jerry Falwell Sr. 

The documentary includes the voices and expertise of writers and historians such as Anthea Butler, Jemar Tisby, Nancy Gibbs and Religion Unplugged regular contributor and veteran AP religion news reporter Richard Ostling.

The documentary’s strongest asset is its archival footage, both of influential historical events and Graham's evangelism. Hearing him preach, if only for a few carefully-chosen seconds, illustrates perfectly how he was able to change the lives of so many. But the life of such a complex public figure can’t be easily compartmentalized. 

Here are five things the documentary’s one hour and 51-minute runtime notably left out. 

1. Graham’s children preach the imperfection of Christian life.

Graham and his wife, Ruth, had five children — Franklin, Anne, Ned, Gigi and Ruth. (Franklin is perhaps the most recognizable, the president of Samaritan’s Purse and a vocal supporter of conservative politics.) The documentary discusses the fact that Graham was often away on evangelizing trips, leaving his wife at home to raise their children. 

His children have since discussed the frequent absence of their father, how it led to occasional unrecognition and alternating parental structures. Ned was a frequent drug user when he was younger; family members have gotten divorced. But Graham’s children speak of their parents’ unconditional love in the midst of these hardships. His children are all Christians, many of whom are involved in ministry. Many of his grandchildren are, too. 

They’ve made it a point to show that their family isn’t elevated over any other Christian family just because Graham was at the head of it. 

“We’re a family just like any other, with our own joys and heartbreaks,” daughter Ruth said in a 1995 interview. “We’re not immune because we’re Billy Graham’s kids.”

2. Graham was preaching against White Jesus as early as 1973. 

Discussions of White Jesus have been a frequent part of modern Christian discussion, especially as some claim the prevalence of an “Americanized” Jesus makes the faith an exclusive one. Graham boldly spoke out against that at a 1973 Crusade in South Africa.

“[Jesus] was human. He was not a White man; He was not a Black man,” he said. He points out what is known as fact, that Jesus was from the Middle East and most likely brown-skinned. 

“Christianity is not a White man’s religion,” he said in the same sermon. 

3. Some say Graham posted bail for Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s. 

Graham had a fraught relationship with King and the Civil Rights movement as a whole. He took a strange, moderate stance on segregation. He preached the equality of man under God and notably tore down segregation ropes as early as 1953; he also criticized protests and marches and turned down offers to speak out against segregation and racism in the public sphere.

Graham chose not to join in on some of King’s civil disobedience in that way. King once asked that Graham cut ties with segregationist Texas Governor Price Daniel before a Crusade in the state — or condemn his viewpoint. Graham’s advisor wrote back with their refusal, saying “Graham has never engaged in politics on one side or the other.”

For these actions, Graham is criticized in the documentary for not being a strong enough voice against segregation and racism in the U.S. 

Despite Graham’s choice not to involve himself personally, Pastor Tony Evans recalls that in 1960, Graham posted bail for King after he was arrested at a demonstration. 

And King is quoted as saying the following of Graham: “Had it not been for the ministry of my good friend Dr. Billy Graham, my work in the Civil Rights movement would not have been as successful as it has been.” 

Graham also expressed public regret for this stance later in his career, after his focus had shifted to global Christianity and away from the exclusivity of American politics. 

“I think I made a mistake when I didn’t go to Selma,” Graham said in a 2005 interview with the AP. “I would like to have done more.”

4. Graham wouldn’t give his mailing list of evangelicals to Nixon for campaign use. 

Perhaps Graham’s biggest mistake — certainly as is pinpointed in the documentary — is his close friendship with President Nixon, with whom he privately made anti-Semitic remarks and as a minister to “both sides” of the political aisle, nearly sacrificed his famous relationships with both Republicans and Democrats. By the time Watergate came, Graham was completely blindsided (as he believed Nixon’s reassurances of Christian faith were a good enough judge of his character) and forced to reconsider his entire public persona. He expressed public disappointment in Nixon’s actions and morality after reading public transcripts of Watergate documents. 

During the Nixon era, many saw Graham as having sacrificed his original mission for the realm of power and politics. After Nixon resigned and wouldn’t take Graham’s call, Graham shifted focus for the rest of his life and ministry more toward international ministry and less toward American politics. It’s these final few decades of global, considerate spread of Christianity for which Graham is most fondly remembered.

Chuck Colson, a special counsel to Nixon during his presidency that went to prison for his role in the Watergate Scandal, said in a 2018 interview that he was in charge of mobilizing religious support for Nixon. To get in touch with religious crowds, he’d often slyly get the mailing lists of religious leaders. 

But Graham, who had a list “that was pure gold,” refused to give his away. 

“Even for his good friend Richard Nixon, who took him into his confidence and went to his Crusades, flew him on Air Force One, and cruised with him, he would not give up that mailing list. That was good,” Colson said. 

Colson, after his term in prison, became a devout evangelical leader who wrote many books, hosted a radio show and founded a ministry called Prison Fellowship.

5. Before MLK Jr. became Graham’s ministry partner, preacher and musician Howard Jones became an integral part of his team.

Graham led a 16-week Crusade in New York City’s Madison Square Garden in 1957. For its duration, 18,000 people were present nightly. The documentary shows sidewalks packed with lines of people waiting to get in. 

Perhaps the most notable night of this Crusade was July 18, when MLK Jr. gave the invocation — marking the start of the uneasy but important partnership between the two men. But weeks before King came to the stage, Graham was joined by Black preacher Howard Jones, who had been preaching in Africa. 

“I lost a lot of my Black friends who thought I should leave Billy,” Jones said. “But the people who accuse Billy of not being vocal enough against racism and other social issues have not seen what goes on behind the scenes. They do not know that man’s heart.”

Jillian Cheney is a Poynter-Koch fellow for Religion Unplugged who loves consuming good culture and writing about it. She also reports on American Protestantism and evangelical Christianity. You can find her on Twitter @_jilliancheney.