Rev. Graham will be only the fourth private citizen to “lie in honor,” in the Capitol Rotunda

Billy Graham Will Be the Fourth Private Citizen Ever to Lie in Honor at the U.S. Capitol

 

The Rev. Billy Graham, the Baptist Evangelist who died Feb. 21 at 99, will lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda from Wednesday to Thursday, so that the public can have a chance to bid farewell to the religious leader who preached to Christians in 185 countries and territories.


The practice of U.S. elected officials and military leaders lying in state at the Capitol began with Senator Henry Clay in 1852, and since then more than two dozen people — including 11 Presidents — have received that posthumous send-off in the Rotunda. Many of those services, including those for Supreme Court Justices Thurgood Marshall and Warren Burger, have used the same wooden framework constructed to prop up Abraham Lincoln’s coffin in 1865.

 But Graham will be only the fourth private citizen to “lie in honor,” rather than “lie in state,” in recognition of his contributions to the nation.