Preaching, Politics and Race: The 1952 Billy Graham Crusade in Jackson

During his 1952 crusade in Jackson, Mississippi, Billy Graham delivered what appeared to be a blow to racial segregation. “There is no scriptural basis for segregation,” Graham said in an interview with the United Press. “The audience may be segregated but there is no segregation at the alter.” Sensing potential controversy in the heart of the deeply segregated Deep South, the nation’s most famous pastor then sought to clarify his earlier remarks. “I feel that I have been misinterpreted on racial segregation,” Graham told the local press. “We follow the existing social customs in whatever part of the country in which we minister.” Graham vowed that he “came to Jackson to preach only the Bible and not to enter into local issues.” His clarification was simple: Billy Graham was a preacher, not a politician or activist. This talk tells the story of the 1952 Jackson Crusade. It analyzes Graham’s comments about race and segregation and the seating arrangements at his nearly month-long Crusade at Belhaven College’s Tiger Stadium. Through the 1952 Jackson Crusade, we can gain a better understanding of the connections between religion, politics and race in the era of Jim Crow.

Speakers Expertise:

Dr. Charles Westmoreland has been a member of the Delta State University faculty since 2009. He earned his B.S. in History from Ferrum College (1998), M.A. in History from the University of North Carolina-Charlotte (2000), and Ph.D. in History from the University of Mississippi (2008). His primary teaching and research interests are in modern U.S. history with an emphasis on the American South. He is currently working with the University of Georgia Press on the publication South, 1955-practice of prayer has shaped southern public life and politics by focusing on the Civil Rights Movement and school prayer controversies that engulfed the region since the 1950s and 1960s.