John R. "Johnny" Cash (February 26, 1932 - September 12, 2003) was an American televangelist, pastor and Christian activist, best known as the founder and longtime leader of the conservative evangelical organization Americans for Chirst (AFC), which he helped found in 1974. A struggling actor in the late 1950s, Cash was involved in a motor accident in which he killed a pregnant young mother and her two-year old son while driving drunk in 1961, which led him to serve a five-year prison sentence at Folsom State Prison, where he discovered the Bible and later became a charismatic minister known for drawing large crowds. Cash is noted for having defined social conservatism first amongst Democrats and later amongst Nationalists, and was an active participant in the civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s, supporting integration and lambasting paleosegregationists opposed to the Voting Rights Act of 1970 as being "un-Christian" in a nationally televised speech delivered in Houston, which is regarded by historians as Cash's "national coming-out party."
Cash became politically active in the 1980s, running in the 1988 Presidential election as a Nationalist on a platform of prohibiting abortion, preserving the right to school prayers and allowing greater levity for home-schooling. He failed to register much of an impression in his run and while he submitted his name for a run in 1996, he dropped out without contesting a single primary. Cash later conceded that running for President was a mistake and "was not God's plan." His organization, Americans for Christ, is regarded as one of the largest and most influential evangelical organizations in the United States.