This week in Christian history: D. James Kennedy dies; Billy Graham's NYC Crusade ends

By Michael Gryboski, Editor
Sunday, August 30, 2026

Billy Graham concludes New York crusade with 2.4 million attendees – Sept. 1, 1957

Billy Graham, the American evangelist, preaches in May 1957 at Madison Square Garden in New York. | AFP AFP/Getty Images

This week marks the anniversary of when the Rev. Billy Graham concluded a multiday crusade in New York City in which around 2.3 million people attended and over 61,000 decisions for Christ were made.

Graham was known for holding revival services at major venues in cities across the world that were known as “crusades,” which often featured praise music and his preaching.

Believed to be the largest and longest crusade that Graham ever held in decades of ministry, the New York crusade began in May and was originally scheduled to end on June 30 and then was pushed to July 20, before finally ending on Sept. 1.

“The Crusade initially had been scheduled to end on June 30, but the meetings running at capacity (or beyond) almost every night, the Crusade committee quickly decided to extend it,” Graham recounted in his book Just As I Am.

“From my standpoint, the decision to extend wasn’t so easy; by the end of those first six weeks, I was already physically depleted. I also had run out of sermons and was having to prepare a new one every day. Some nights during those later weeks, I sat on the platform and prayed silently, ‘O God, You have to do it. I can’t do it.’”