He promoted an anti-Communist, segregationist message as well as evangelizing, and founded a radio station, monthly newspaper, and a college in Tulsa, Oklahoma to support his ministries.

In 1974, several students at his American Christian College accused Hargis of sexual misconduct;[2] however, the Tulsa district attorney found no evidence of wrongdoing.

"[6] Drawing on premillennialist theology, Hargis believed national and world events were part of a cosmic struggle, where the ultimate actors were Christ and Satan.

Hargis preached on cultural issues: against sex education and Communism, and for the return of prayer and Bible reading to public schools, long before the rise of the late 20th century Religious Right.

David Noebel, wrote the short work, "Communism, Hypnotism and the Beatles" (1965), which he expanded into "Rhythm, Riots and Revolution" the following year.

Hargis was a member of the John Birch Society and strongly favored segregation, arguing that desegregation violated the Eighth Commandment by allowing the government to steal from one's property.

[9] Along with his friend Carl McIntire, who was staunchly anti-Catholic,[9] Hargis was one of the most influential people in a movement later known as the "Old Christian Right.

[11] On November 25, 1964, Hargis attacked a book and an article called “Hate Clubs of the Air" he believed to be written about him in the Nation magazine by journalist Fred J. Cook in a recorded broadcast heard on WGCB in Red Lion, Pennsylvania.

This ultimately lead to a landmark 1969 United States Supreme Court decision Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC upholding the fairness doctrine.

Richard Viguerie, a pioneer in using direct mail in the 1970s and 1980s to support conservative movements and their causes, began his career working for Hargis.

He founded the David Livingstone Missionary Foundation, which operated hospitals, orphanages, leprosy villages, medical vans, and mission services in South Korea, Hong Kong, India, the Philippines, and Africa.

[15] Noebel went on to author his book Slaughter of the Innocents that was published by the American Christian College within months of the Roe v. Wade decision, and wrote many provocative articles for fundamentalist publications on the abortion issue.

The account was reported by Time in 1976, along with other alleged incidents at Hargis' farm outside of Neosho, Missouri, and while on tour with his All American Kids musical group.

"[3] About 1976, he eventually retreated to his Missouri farm, where he continued to work, resuming a greatly diminished ministry, issuing daily and weekly radio broadcasts.

In his final years, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and a series of heart attacks, Hargis died in a Tulsa nursing home on November 27, 2004, at seventy-nine.

KDLF radio (so named after the David Livingston Foundation) played Southern Gospel Music and religious programming until it was sold around 1993.

[citation needed] Hargis' papers, described as "a goldmine for students of American politics," are held at the special collections department of the University of Arkansas Libraries in Fayetteville.

[17] In the late 1970s, the popular WNBC disk jockey Imus in the Morning would occasionally do a segment where he would present himself as a "holy roller" evangelical Christian preacher named "Reverend Billy Sol Hargis".

"Reverend Billy Sol Hargis" was an intentional satire of Christian ministers who were more interested in financial gain than the spiritual needs of their followers.

The novel looks at the attempt on the life of General Edwin Walker (and associate of Hargis as part of Operation Midnight Ride), in the build up to the assassination of John F Kennedy.