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The Politics of Decency: Billy Graham, Evangelicalism, And

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The Politics of Decency: Billy Graham, Evangelicalism, And THE POLITICS OF DECENCY: BILLY GRAHAM, EVANGELICALISM, AND THE END OF THE SOLID SOUTH, 1950-1980 By Steven P. Miller Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in History May, 2006 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Professor Don H. Doyle Professor Dennis C. Dickerson Professor Kathleen Flake Professor Marjorie Julian Spruill Professor Devin Fergus Copyright © 2006 by Steven P. Miller All Rights Reserved To my wife, Clarissa P. Gaff, friend, activist, and endless source of love, support, and joy iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My committee members are model members of the profession. Don Doyle, my advisor, was supportive from the start and from afar. I greatly appreciate his loyalty and encouragement. Dennis Dickerson always offered probing advice and encouraged me to expand my project into a dissertation. His seminar on religion and the Civil Rights Movement was a highlight of my graduate career. A summer of researching for Marjorie Spruill changed my perspective on the origins of the Christian Right. Several graduate classes taught by Kathleen Flake reinvigorated my interest in religious studies. My discussions with Devin Fergus sent my head spinning in the most meaningful of ways. Many other scholars and classmates associated with Vanderbilt assisted me in more ways than I can possibly mention. David Carlton may not remember this conversation, but his casual reference to a Billy Graham crusade in Greenville, SC, sparked my interest in the evangelist. Richard King is a model of lucidity, generosity, and kindness. My classmate Peter Kuryla has been a tremendous intellectual companion and friend over the last five years. He is also a stellar close-reader. I have greatly valued my running conversations with many other graduate friends and colleagues, including LeeAnn Reynolds, Bob Hutton, Nicholas Beasley, Tim Boyd, and Miles Mullin. This list could continue ad infinitum. Financial support came from the Department of History, Center for the Study of Religion & Culture, and College of Arts & Science. A number of outside scholars gave valuable assistance along the way. My undergraduate professors at Goshen College provided a solid intellectual foundation and, more importantly, demonstrated a worldview worthy of emulation. Paul Harvey of the iv University of Colorado at Colorado Springs provided early encouragement. He is a role model for any student of the American South. Mark Noll of Wheaton College offered friendly suggestions on the topic of evangelical social ethics. Stephen Whitfield of Brandeis University and David Chappell of the University of Arkansas also conveyed supportive thoughts. Special thanks go out to Ann Ziker, Ph.D. candidate at Rice University, and Dan Williams, now at the University of West Georgia, for their insights on my subject and modern southern history in general. Allison Perlman, Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas, generously hosted me during a research trip. Archivists and librarians are a historian’s lifelines. The good folks at the Billy Graham Center Archives were very generous from the start. Wayne Weber was especially tolerant of my rapid-fire box requests, while Bob Shuster, Paul Ericksen, and Christian Sawyer offered advice and logistical assistance. Stephen Scholle of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) shepherded me through process of attaining permission to quote from copyrighted BGEA materials. Essential aid also came from archivists at the Nixon Presidential Materials, Eisenhower Presidential Library, Nixon Library, Southern Historical Collection, and other collections too numerous to name. Vanderbilt’s interlibrary loan staff tracked down the most obscure of requests. I am blessed with a loving and supportive family. My parents, Richard and Fannie Miller, have always endorsed my scholarly pursuits. I could not ask for better in- laws than Doug and Rebecca Gaff, the latter of whom very generously doubled as a copy editor. This dissertation is dedicated to my wife, Clarissa P. Gaff. As a law student, she somehow found time to read yet another paragraph and footnote about Billy Graham. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION ............................................................................................................. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... iv Chapter I. INTRODUCTION: BILLY GRAHAM, SOUTHERNER ....................................... 1 Graham, the South, and Evangelicalism.............................................................. 6 A World—and a Regional—Historical Figure .................................................. 18 Overview.......................................................................................................... 22 II. “NO SEGREGATION AT THE ALTAR”............................................................. 25 The Making of a Racial Moderate .................................................................... 27 In Public and Private Spheres ........................................................................... 37 An Early Affinity for Politics ........................................................................... 55 A Theological Defeat for Jim Crow.................................................................. 61 III. EVANGELICAL UNIVERSALISM AND THE POLITICS OF DECENCY ........ 66 Evangelical Universalism ................................................................................. 68 The Politics of Decency.................................................................................... 81 The Parameters of Decency ............................................................................. 104 IV. “ANOTHER KIND OF MARCH” ....................................................................... 112 Different Dreams............................................................................................. 115 Back in the White House................................................................................. 124 The Politics of Decency Comes to Alabama .................................................... 137 Law and Order Turns Rightward ..................................................................... 162 V. BILLY GRAHAM’S SOUTHERN STRATEGY ................................................ 168 Prelude to the Power and the Glory ................................................................. 172 From the Quiet Revolution to the Silent Majority ............................................ 191 At the White House, in the Stadium—and on the Telephone............................ 204 Whither the New South?.................................................................................. 230 VI. CRUSADING FOR THE SUNBELT SOUTH.................................................... 237 vi Revivals, Graham, and New South Discourse.................................................. 241 The Birmingham Easter Rally, Continued........................................................ 246 Atlanta: Tom Cousins’ Dream......................................................................... 256 The Posited Model South ................................................................................ 272 VII. “AT THE WATER GATE” ................................................................................ 276 “There’s a little bit of Watergate in all of us.”.................................................. 279 Up from Watergate.......................................................................................... 297 The Other Water Gate ..................................................................................... 308 A Pulpit Setter................................................................................................. 326 VIII. CONCLUSION: THE NEW SOUTH OF BILLY GRAHAM............................. 328 BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................................................................................... 342 vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: BILLY GRAHAM, SOUTHERNER An influential religious personality such as Dr. Billy Graham is interesting to study because he serves as a kind of trading-post agent of this two-way traffic between religious faith and the world of changing codes, technology, politics, medical evolution, and social mobility. Through him flows much of the interchange between religion, on one hand, and the complex of society and culture, on the other. Joe E. Barnhart1 But I think we have seen rather overwhelmingly that what the South does become will not be in fulfillment of all those grand expectations that it would develop models for national emulation of new political alignments or new kinds of cities or new economic prodigies or new never-equaled racial harmony. Pat Watters2 In June 2005, an elderly Billy Graham returned to New York City, a half-century after a mountain-top moment in his evangelistic career, a crusade that had stretched on for four months in that most un-Protestant and secular of American locales. Stricken with prostate cancer and Parkinson’s disease, among other health problems, and reliant on a special lectern that allowed him to sit while preaching, the white-haired Graham held only three services during what was billed as his final domestic crusade. Most of the 230,000-plus total attendees likely knew what to expect from this lion in winter. Many elements of his services had remained largely unchanged since the 1950s: the bass- baritone of soloist George
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