The American evangelist and charismatic preacher Billy Graham (born 1918) became a leading spokesman for Fundamentalism when he initiated a series of tours of the United States and Europe that led to large-scale evangelism.

William Franklin Graham, Jr. was born November 7, 1918, on a dairy farm near Charlotte, North Carolina, which his paternal grandfather Crook Graham bought after serving in the Confederate army. Young Billy would read from his collection of history books. He also practiced baseball when finished with his chores, because and his ambition was to become a professional baseball player. It was changed into a commitment to an evangelical career by a religious conversion experience when he was 16. Graham was ordained a Southern Baptist minister in 1939. He was educated in conservative Christian colleges: Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, the Florida Bible Institute (now called Trinity College) near Tampa, and Wheaton College in Illinois, where he...