This created such an aversion that the two siblings avoided alcohol and drugs for the rest of their lives. Graham was 15 when Prohibition ended in December 1933, and his father forced him and his sister Catherine to drink beer until they became sick. According to his father, that yelling led him to become a minister. Like Tarzan, he would hang on the trees and gave the popular Tarzan yell. He started to read books from an early age and loved to read novels for boys, especially Tarzan. Graham attended the Sharon Grammar School. He was raised by his parents in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. When he was nine years old, the family moved about 75 yards (69 m) from their white frame house to a newly built red brick house. Graham was raised on the family dairy farm with his two younger sisters Catherine Morrow and Jean and younger brother Melvin Thomas. Of Scots-Irish descent, he was the eldest of four children born to Morrow (née Coffey) and dairy farmer William Franklin Graham Sr. was born on November 7, 1918, in the downstairs bedroom of a farmhouse near Charlotte, North Carolina. Grant Wacker writes that by the mid-1960s, he had become the 'Great Legitimator': 'By then his presence conferred status on presidents, acceptability on wars, shame on racial prejudice, desirability on decency, dishonor on indecency, and prestige on civic events.' Early lifeīirthplace Marker for Billy Graham near 4601 Park Rd, Charlotte, NC Graham was on Gallup's list of most admired men and women a record 61 times. As a result of his crusades, Graham preached the gospel to more people in person than anyone in the history of Christianity. Graham's estimated lifetime audience, including radio and television broadcasts, topped billions of people. According to his staff, more than 3.2 million people have responded to the invitation at Billy Graham Crusades to 'accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior'. Graham operated a variety of media and publishing outlets. Despite his early suspicions and apprehension, common among contemporaneous evangelical Protestants towards Catholicism, Graham eventually developed amicable ties with many American Catholic Church figures and later encouraged unity between Catholics and Protestants. Graham's evangelism was appreciated by mainline Protestant denominations, as he encouraged those mainline Protestants who were converted to his evangelical message to remain within or return to their mainline churches. He was also lifelong friends with Robert Schuller, another televangelist and the founding pastor of the Crystal Cathedral, whom Graham talked into starting his own television ministry. Johnson (one of Graham's closest friends), and Richard Nixon. Graham was particularly close to Dwight D. According to his website, Graham preached to live audiences of 210 million people in more than 185 countries and territories through various meetings, including BMS World Mission and Global Mission. In addition to his religious aims, he helped shape the worldview of a huge number of people who came from different backgrounds, leading them to find a relationship between the Bible and contemporary secular viewpoints. to preach jointly at a revival in New York City in 1957.

He repudiated racial segregation and insisted on racial integration for his revivals and crusades, starting in 1953.

He also hosted the radio show Hour of Decision from 1950 to 1954. In his six decades on television, Graham hosted annual crusades, evangelistic campaigns that ran from 1947 until his retirement in 2005.

Graham held large indoor and outdoor rallies with sermons that were broadcast on radio and television, with some still being re-broadcast into the 21st century. He was a prominent evangelical Christian figure, and according to a biographer, was 'among the most influential Christian leaders' of the 20th century. (Novem– February 21, 2018) was an American evangelist and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well known internationally in the late 1940s.

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