A Charlotte woman recently filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. In the lawsuit, Kimberly McCallum said that she was fired from the organization in 2007 after she complained that not enough was being done to reach out to black churches.

A spokesman for the organization didn't comment on the firing, but said the association does extensive outreach and works extensively with African-American and other diverse churches.

In her complaint, McCallum said that she was the only black employee working in the association's executive offices when she began there in February 2007. In July of that year, she was asked to recruit congregations to a camp program but she said she found that a list of 635 prospective churches had only three congregations that were primarily black.

She said she expressed concern to her superiors, and McCallum was told a week later that her department was downsizing and her job was being eliminated. She claims she later found out that a white woman with less experience replaced her.

McCallum said she tried to get other jobs at the association, based in Minneapolis, but that she was blocked from other positions and had a later job offer revoked. She wants a job reinstated, back pay and damages for what she describes as discrimination because of her race.

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association sent Eyewitness News a statement that said: "The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has been served with a lawsuit by a former employee. We cannot discuss the specifics of the pending case, except to state that we disagree with the allegations in the lawsuit."

On Thursday, the case was moved to federal court.

Mark Demoss, a spokesman for the Graham organization, declined to talk about McCallum's job. But he said he has frequently seen the association go to great effort to increase black participation and noted that two prominent black pastors from the Minneapolis area recently led an association event there.

"That's a preposterous claim that the organization would deliberately bypass African-American participation," Demoss said. "In fact, the opposite is quite true."

The association was founded by Billy Graham in 1950 and is now headed by Graham's son, Franklin. Billy Graham, 90, has recently battled a range of health problems and largely spends time at his North Carolina home.

Though he began his ministry when segregation was still accepted, Graham later integrated his crusades and made efforts to draw diverse crowds to his U.S. rallies.

Michael O. Emerson, a Rice University sociologist who has done extensive research on race and religion, said the association has long emphasized trying to increase its diversity even though churches remain deeply segregated.

"Although I don't think they've been as successful as they would like, they have worked very hard at it," Emerson said.