A Billy Graham Crusade was held in Neyland Stadium on May 22–31, 1970. In early 1969 Ralph Frost and A. C. Masingill Jr. headed a Laymen’s Committee to invite Dr. Graham. A petition with 129,000 signatures collected in shopping centers, restaurants, department stores, banks, factories, sports arenas, and on college campuses served as the invitation. A committee of citizens met with President Andy Holt and Charles Weaver to request use of Neyland Stadium. The president left it to the chancellor to decide, and the chancellor gave permission. The issue of use of the stadium by an external entity was raised, and it was soon announced that the Fellowship of Christian Athletes had actually invited the crusade to campus.
The stadium was rented for $20,000 for a 10-day period. The state legislature passed a resolution proclaiming May 22, 1970, as Billy Graham Day. Speakers at the crusade included Johnny Cash, Ethel Waters, Norma Zimmer, Beverly Shea, Dr. Andrew Holt, Mr. Sam Venable, and Mayor Leonard Rogers. A 5,500-person-volunteer choir performed. Coach Bill Battle led the Pledge of Allegiance at the Saturday Memorial Day service. The 10 crusade services attracted more than a million people, and total contributions during the meetings surpassed $300,000. (The budget was $230,000.) On the last day, a small plane circled above the stadium trailing a sign reading Thanks Billy Graham.
Local media announced on May 27 that longtime Graham friend President Richard Nixon would attend the service the following night and would speak, having been invited by Graham. An official biography of Graham indicates that the proposal for a presidential visit was made while Graham was holding a crusade in Germany in April and that he forwarded an invitation to the White House at that time. It would be the president’s first appearance on a college campus since the Cambodian crisis had erupted in April, followed by the tragic events at Kent State University, and the first time that an incumbent United States president had spoken at a public religious gathering.
On-campus opponents of the Vietnam War mobilized quickly. They sent a telegram to President Nixon stating, “We are angered by your announced presence on this campus and we are outraged that you would capitalize on a religious function, particularly in the South.” The Daily Beacon printed the text of the telegram and announced that there would be a protest. Protesters hastily called antiwar groups throughout the South but expected a crowd of only about 150 at the gathering at 4:00 p.m. on the lawn of the university center. Religious Studies Assistant Professor Charles Reynolds, one of the faculty organizers, described plans for a nonviolent, respectful protest that did not interrupt the religious service. The plan was to remain silent during the crusade service, then to march down to the field at the evangelistic invitation, kneel, and hold up the peace sign.
The protestors left the university center in a mock funeral procession and carried a casket. They carried signs with messages such as “God giveth life and Nixon taketh away,” and “Thou Shalt not Kill.” The procession was stopped at the gate because the wooden sticks, to which the signs were attached, made it impermissible to carry them into the stadium; the signs were detached, and passage through the gates resumed. Tension mounted as the vast majority of the audience and the small group of protestors called and chanted. Attendance was 75,000 inside the stadium and 25,000 outside.
Nixon was introduced by Graham and took the podium to a loud ovation, underneath which jeers and chants could be heard. Faced with escalating profanity and jeering from protestors, the faculty, especially Reynolds, tried to modify the program so that the protestors would merely leave after the Nixon speech. Police took photographs of protestors. Three faculty and 20 other protestors were arrested.
Forty-seven people were arrested, and most of the cases were either plea bargained away or rejected by the grand jury. Several protestors received minor workhouse sentences. Reynolds’s case was the only one to go to court, and he appealed his $20 fine all the way to the Supreme Court, which denied his petition in January 1974.