Born in British Guiana (Guyana), Charles Frank Luckett Nordman Graham attended college in Alabama, Ohio, and Iowa. He came to Beaumont in 1918 on behalf of the American Missionary Association and founded Graham Congregational Church and the Barnwell community center. The Reverend Doctor Graham organized recreational and health services for the city's negro citizens. He was instrumental in easing racial tensions in the early 1940s with the establishment of the Beaumont Negro Goodwill Council. He became a U.S. citizen in 1943, eight months before his death.