Category: Extended impact of revivals

Trail hitters remain firm, say converts. Circa 1918.

When revival calls crowds to the aisle, a critical question follows: “Will that decision endure?” In 1918, after Billy Sunday’s campaigns, journalists followed up with converts and organizers to ask whether the spiritual fervor survived time. The answers—preserved in this article—offer rare insight into how revival might seed long-term change. Read on to see what those trail hitters said, and what it teaches us about lasting faith.

The Washington Herald. Tue, Jan 29, 1918 ·Page 8

TRAIL HITTERS REMAIN FIRM, SAY CONVERTS

Effect of Sunday Revivals in Other Cities Has Been Permanent.

BY ARTHUR JOYCE.

Does ‘trail hitting’ at Billy Sunday campaign meetings show any permanent results? Are those persons who walk the sawdust aisles over at the Tabernacle interested only in formally shaking the hand of the evangelist – or is there something definite behind it all?

Thousands who have seen approximately 6,000 persons ‘hit the trail’ at the Tabernacle in this city are asking these questions. And about the only way in which they can be answered with any degree of accuracy is to look over the field where the evangelist has campaigned and see what’s the situation a year or two following the campaigns.

I recently had a talk with two influential representatives of cities in which Billy has campaigned and I put the questions to each of them. One is Gen. C. Edward Murray, quartermaster general of New Jersey, the other is Lucius L. Jeddy, head of the Merchants National Bank, of Syracuse, N.Y. Both were Billy Sunday ‘trail hitters’ – Gen. Murray in Trenton, N.J., and Mr. Eddy in Syracuse.

Big Sunday Club.

Gen. Murray is president of the Billy Sunday Club, of Trenton, an organization of ‘trail hitters’ formed after the evangelist’s Trenton campaign. That club now has a big membership and every member in it is personally interested in leading others to Christ.

‘The campaign in Trenton,’ said Gen. Murray, ‘awakened a remarkable interest in Christian work, especially among the men and women who ‘hit the trail.’ Churches have increased their membership to a remarkable extent; booze joints that keeled over; Sunday schools are crowded and everywhere there is shown a wonderful interest in things religious. I know many noted men who have passed up the cigars and joined the church and I know of one politician who formerly represented the booze interests, who has been converted and is now an active election on an anti-booze ticket.

‘On the whole, I should say that the Sunday campaign in Trenton has done more to evangelize the city than any other one happening in recent years. And I’m satisfied that the men who ‘hit the trail’ are still going right with the Lord and are doing their best to lead the aisles for Christ.’

Mr. Eddy told of the workings of the Billy Sunday Club in Syracuse. Every member of the organization was a ‘trail hitter’ and in the last two years, he said, they have led more than 20,000 men to Christian lives.

‘The ‘trail hitters’ not only themselves ‘stuck to their declarations to stand on God’s side,’ said Mr. Eddy, ‘but they’ve inaugurated an active campaign to bring others into the fold. And if that doesn’t show the permanency of ‘trail hitting’ I’ve lost my guess.’

Senator Vardaman, of Mississippi, made the statement that if the evangelist shall win only one person to Christ in his Washington campaign, ‘we will have been well repaid for our efforts in the revival cause here.’

In Philadelphia – three years after the Sunday campaign – there is a ‘trail-hitting’ organization in virtually every church where the evangelist assisted in the revival. There are probably 7,000 members enrolled in these organizations, and they’re campaigning every day to bring others to the church.

In Scranton, Pa., one church added 2,000 members to its rolls within six months after the Sunday campaign. Another Scranton church increased its enrollment by 1,000 in a year following the campaign. The same is true of the churches in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and in Carbondale, Pa., churches.

In Wichita, Kan., three men of national reputation have been converted who call ‘gospel teams.’ These ‘teams’ go about the country and work in the Middle West to preach the gospel and tell of the wonderful work Billy Sunday did in their campaigns. Out of these teams has been formed a National Federation of Gospel Teams’ which are made up of leading men throughout the country – all of whom are either ‘trail hitters’ at Sunday meetings or are in the church as a result of the work of ‘trail-hitters’ who have taken up personal work. These teams have a record of 11,000 conversions to their credit.

Don’t All Stay.

Detroit has a ‘trail-hitters’ club’ of nearly 1,000 members; Los Angeles has one with about 500 men on its rolls; Atlanta has just finished organization of a Billy Sunday Club with several hundred members. And in virtually every city and town where the evangelist has campaigned there are similar organizations continuing the work Billy began. Nearly every ‘trail hitter’ in these places has associated himself with these clubs.

Of course, every person who ‘hits the trail’ isn’t a sticker. But records made by Sunday party experience year after Billy’s campaigns in leading cities show that approximately 85 per cent of those who ‘walk the aisles’ represent permanent converts.

The object of the ‘trail hitting’ is not only to bring to the ‘front’ in a public confession of faith those who have been more before taken any stand in the matter. Billy’s ‘invitations’ are intended to induce the church members to ‘reconsecrate’ themselves and ask to be more earnest Christian life from those who have already ‘accepted’ Christianity.

Legacy & What It Means
This article offers more than historical curiosity: it reveals Sunday’s conviction that conversion must stick. His method didn’t end with a call to the front — it extended into communities, clubs, and networks of believers committed to nurturing change.

Application for Today
In contemporary ministries, it’s easy to emphasize decisions without long-term follow-through. What lessons does Sunday’s model offer us? Perhaps this: revival without discipleship is incomplete.

Reflection & Invitation
If “trail hitters” in 1918 were expected to keep walking, not wander off, who in your context needs that same encouragement today? How will the faith you ignite be sustained, multiplied, and anchored in life?

$10,000 Raised In Ten Minutes for Negro YMCA – Atlanta 1917-1918

“Atlanta, Jan. 1.—Ten thousand dollars raised within ten minutes by white citizens of Atlanta yesterday assures the negroes of this city success in completing their Y.M.C.A. building. The white people are pledged to raise another ten thousand if necessary. A fifty thousand dollar fund was needed to obtain the gift of $25,000 from Julius Rosenwald. C.W. McClure made a donation with the statement that the friendly relations between the whites and the negroes were better than ever since Billy Sunday preached to both.”
Jan 1 paper

In the waning days of 1917, as Atlanta turned the page to a new year, a remarkable act of interracial philanthropy unfolded that would leave a lasting mark on the city’s history. Newspapers reported that ten thousand dollars had been raised in just ten minutes by white citizens of Atlanta to help fund a new YMCA building for the city’s Black community. The drive was part of a larger campaign to secure a matching gift of twenty-five thousand dollars from Julius Rosenwald, the Sears, Roebuck & Co. magnate whose generosity was transforming African American education and social life across the South. Local businessman C.W. McClure, who helped spearhead the effort, remarked that the relations between whites and Blacks in Atlanta had improved markedly since evangelist Billy Sunday had preached to both communities during his campaign there.

The fruits of that campaign materialized in the Butler Street YMCA—known in its day as the “Negro Y.” Built between 1918 and 1920, the new structure rose in the heart of the Sweet Auburn district, the beating center of Black enterprise and culture in Atlanta. The project followed Rosenwald’s signature pattern: a challenge grant that required local citizens—both white and Black—to raise the balance. The local enthusiasm kindled by Sunday’s revival evidently carried over into civic generosity, helping to meet the $50,000 goal needed to unlock Rosenwald’s contribution.

The Butler Street YMCA quickly became one of the South’s most important centers of African American life. Designed by the firm Hentz, Reid & Adler and built under the direction of Black contractor Alexander D. Hamilton, the facility was impressive for its time—three stories of brick and stone housing a swimming pool, gymnasium, dormitories, meeting halls, and classrooms. It provided a wholesome environment for young men seeking moral and social uplift in a city that offered them few such spaces.

More than a recreational facility, the Butler Street Y grew into a cornerstone of civic and spiritual leadership. Over the decades it came to be known as the “Black City Hall” of Atlanta, hosting meetings that shaped the course of civil rights and community advancement. Figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Maynard Jackson, and Vernon Jordan would later pass through its doors. The Y stood as a living emblem of what cooperative goodwill and faith-inspired philanthropy could achieve during an era when segregation still divided the city.

The 1918 campaign that launched the Butler Street YMCA was more than a fundraising victory. It was a moment when revival energy turned outward—when the social conscience stirred by Billy Sunday’s preaching translated into practical generosity. In helping to fund the YMCA, the people of Atlanta built not only a structure but also a bridge between communities, one that carried forward the spirit of reform, service, and reconciliation that Sunday’s message had kindled. The Butler Street Y remained for nearly a century a monument to that brief but luminous cooperation—a place where faith met action and where the legacy of revival took tangible form in brick, mortar, and hope.

Butler YMCA, image from their Facebook page