Evangelist Billy Graham Preaches in New York City Billy Graham, a young Baptist minister from North Carolina, electrified mass audiences, exhorting them to find salvation in Jesus Christ and to uphold Christian moral standards. Americans flocked to his crusades, even as he implicitly condemned their avid participation in consumerism as “materialistic, worldly, secular, greedy, and covetous.” Hundreds of thousands flocked to his New York Crusade in 1957, and millions watched on TV. Brochure image used with permission of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. All rights reserved.