Organizers of a Billy Graham crusade planned in June recruited pastors Tuesday to build a vast following for a religious event portrayed as powerful enough to unite a divided city. Amid prayers for the ailing 82-year-old evangelists health, organizers formally announced the June 21-24 crusade at Papa Johns Cardinal Stadium, one of only two Graham crusades planned this year. I believe this is the answer to much prayer, said the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., chairman of the crusade executive committee and president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. It is the fulfillment of many hopes. And it is the right time. The announcement came two days after several hundred people marched to city police headquarters to protest the fatal shooting of a young black man last week by a white police officer. Relations between police and the black community have been strained by several shootings in recent years. The community also was embroiled in a heated debate over a ballot issue to merge city and county governments. The merger proposal won voter approval last November. There is a great need for unity in this community, and brothers and sisters, this is the great opportunity for unity, Mohler said. The Rev. Bob Russell, senior pastor of Southeast Christian Church, said the communitys problems are spiritual. He urged churches to get involved to make the crusade the citys most significant spiritual event. We believe that God has opened the door, and we need to walk through it, Russell said, drawing approving amens from some of the hundreds who filled a convention center ballroom for the announcement. He noted that the organizing committee includes people from different denominations and different races. Graham assistant Sterling Huston said the evangelist looked forward to bringing his crusade to Louisville for the first time in a generation. He is focused on this crusade, said Huston, director of North American Ministries for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Grahams last full-scale crusade in Louisville lasted four weeks in 1956 and drew 500,000 people. He returned in 1964 for a one-day crusade. Graham has ties to the city through Southern Seminary, where a school that prepares ministers for evangelism and missions work is named for him. Graham, frail with Parkinsons disease and a brain condition, said late last week he would not participate in George W. Bushs presidential inauguration. Doctors urged Graham to skip the ceremony after medical tests revealed that a shunt a small, thin catheter designed to drain fluid from his brain was not working properly. Huston urged people to pray for the evangelist. Graham plans another crusade in Fresno, Calif., in October. These are his priorities and his calling, Huston said.