On July 18, 1957 Evangelist Billy Graham, a white minister from North Carolina, a native southerner was holding services at Madison Square Garden. He noticed over the first two months that the audiences were not mixed. In his efforts to have more of an integrated audience, his team invited a 28-year-old, Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. to lead the prayer at the crusade. Dr. King had just led the Montgomery Bus Boycott, from December 5, 1955 to December 20, 1956. The two shared the pulpit that night, when he gave the opening prayer. He prayed for a “warless world'” and a “brotherhood that transcends race and color.”

There may be a generation that does not know or realize how big this invitation was to the movement. Dr. Billy Graham was famous for leading mass rallies and crusades across the nation and internationally proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. In 1954 Time Magazine cover story said he was the “best known, most talked about Christian leader in the world today, barring the Pope.”

Interesting enough, three years later in February 1957, Dr. Martin L. King, Jr., would also make the cover of Time Magazine, where they said he was, “one of the nations remarkable leaders of men.” They were referring to his leadership of the Bus Boycott and how the Supreme Court had just ordered the end of Bus Segregation.

Last week was the Dr. Martin L. King Jr. holiday weekend, and we were so Godly proud of the Ohio Valley Celebrations in Steubenville, Weirton and Wheeling. Those are the ones I was aware of this year. I am sure there were more, and we celebrate them as well. 1986 is when Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. Day became an official holiday. The good news is some communities in the Ohio Valley were celebrating his birthday, even before it became an official holiday.

A number of celebrations had that 1957 feel to it, where everything old is new again. Mixed audiences of citizens marched together, ate dinner together, had discussions together, and even had a worship service together at the end of the day.

Evang. Billy Graham was asked by a reporter what he thought about segregation, he stated then that “it will only end by setting example of love, like Dr. Martin L. King.” Someone from Billy Graham’s team had heard Dr. King do the closing prayer address on May 17, 1957, at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. This is years before he would come back on August 28, 1963, and give the famous “I have a Dream” speech to a much larger audience at the same location.

The Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom was marking and celebrating the 3rd Anniversary of the Brown vs Board of Education Supreme Court decision. It was said to have over 30,000 people there at the Lincoln Memorial and was considered to be the largest event at that site at the time.

Billy Graham and Martin L. King’s relationship did fray, and have its ups and downs, like most friendships do. Billy Graham once said, “Jim Crow, (laws that treated negroes as 2nd class citizens), must go!” but he did not condone direct action. He went on to say, “I am convinced that some extreme negro leaders are going too far and too fast.” When one reporter told Dr. Billy Graham about Dr. King being arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, he asked him what he thought about it, Dr. Graham is reported to have said, “he is a good personal friend,” and that I would suggest, “he put the brakes on a little bit.” Those comments in the New York Times are what many say Dr. King was responding to when he wrote his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

Dr. Billy Graham did attend Dr. King’s funeral on April 9, 1968 at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia where both Dr. King’s father and Dr. King had served as pastor. In Dr. Graham’s autobiography, he talks about when he heard about the murder and death of Dr. Martin Luther King April 4, 1968: “Not only was I losing a friend through a vicious and senseless killing, but America was losing a social leader and a prophet, and I felt his death would be one of the greatest tragedies in our history.”

One of the many kind things Billy Graham would go on to say about his friend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was “I often think of Martin Luther King who was my friend. He said many times that one plus God is a majority.” Dr. Graham said that at the -First Russian Prayer Breakfast in Moscow, 1992, it was in answer to qualities of leadership that are needed in our world today. As many know Dr. King would be killed at the age of 39. God blessed Dr. Graham to go on to his reward in 2018 at the age of 99. Both men in my estimation helped change the world.

I believe that this friendship helped change our country and yes, even the world. I don’t want to think about what our world would be like today if these two men did not maintain their friendship even in difficult times. They did not always agree with each other, but from all appearances they did remain friends. The Bible says in Proverbs 17:17, “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

My dad often said, “you have many acquaintances, many people who know your name, but very few friends!” He also would tell me, “If all your friends have known you less than a year, and you are up in age, that means you don’t know how to keep friends.” I not saying he is the originator of any of these statements, he is just the one who spoke it to me. Here is a New Year’s Resolution, “Go make a friend with somebody not like you, and do your best to keep them!”