Graham promoted a white evangelical respectability that wanted to 'put the brakes' on the civil rights movement, and never really accepted women as equal to men. He may have been the country's greatest evangelist, but he was also an apologist for the racist and sexist beliefs pervasive among white evangelical men in 20th-century America.

Graham may have wanted integration, but instead, he promoted gradualism and provided absolution for racists hiding behind a Christianity attuned not only to Jesus but also focused on regulating behavior and black bodies.

Graham functioned as a megaphone for conservative biblical ideas that dovetailed with conservative politics, including family, sexual morality, and adherence to laws. He was not only an evangelist, he was also an enforcer: enforcing conservative white Christian social beliefs and evangelical ethical claims as 'America's Pastor.'

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