U.S. Presidents Remember Billy Graham’s ‘Untiring Evangelism’

Over his lifetime, Billy Graham met with every United States president since Harry Truman.

“[His] untiring evangelism has spread the Word of God to every corner of the globe and made him one of the most inspirational, spiritual leaders of the 20th century,” President Ronald Reagan once said. “I think it’s through him that I found myself praying even more than a daily basis to give me the wisdom to make decisions that would serve God and be pleasing to Him.”

After Billy Graham’s passing in 2018, President Bill Clinton shared a story from his childhood. He was 11 when his Sunday school teacher took some children to hear Billy Graham preach in Little Rock, Arkansas—and to a segregated audience, after some pushback.

The response to that Crusade, he said, had a “profound affect on me.”

As a child, later as governor of Arkansas and then as president, Clinton said Graham was the same person whether in a football stadium or in a quiet living room.

“He showed his faith by his works and by his life,” Clinton shared.

President George W. Bush referred to Graham both as “one of the great evangelists of our nation’s history” and “a humble shepherd of the Lord.”