Last week, a North Carolina legislative committee approved a 2-foot model of the statue depicting the famous preacher and evangelist who died in 2018.

The statue that Graham will replace to represent his home state is of former governor and segregationalist, Charles Aycock, who led a number of white supremacist campaigns at the start of the 20th century. Both the North Carolina state government and the US House of Representatives have moved to have his statue taken down.

“From a Christian religious point of view, Billy Graham is an undeniable worldwide icon,” said former North Carolina state Senator Dan Soucek, who has been advocating for a statue of Graham since 2015.

Lauded as a humble man who often shunned the celebrity status that was bestowed upon him, Billy’s son Franklin Graham says his father probably wouldn’t be enamoured by the idea of being immortalised in statue form.

“He would want people to give God the glory and not himself,” he said, noting that his father would still “be very pleased that people thought of him in this way”.

Last month, the Democrat-led House Appropriations Committee announced a bill seeking to remove all Confederate statues of “individuals with unambiguous records of racial intolerance”.