Obit: Reverend Robert Graetz

 

     The white Lutheran Minister sent to Montgomery in 1955 to pastor a black Lutheran church---just in time to be in the middle of the Montgomery Bus Boycott--has died.

      He was the only white minister to support the boycott. He and his wife were friends with Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. 

      Rev. Robert Graetz died after several years of illness. His wife Jeannie and one of their children were with him when he passed quietly.

     The Graetz home was bombed twice during the civil rights era, though nobody was injured.

     He wrote two books about his family's experiences

     Rev. Graetz was 92.

Added: an excellent description in Sunday's N.Y. Times of Rev. Graetz' work in 1955:

"Mr. Graetz remained a rare, unbowed voice for desegregation among white people in Alabama..."

 Rev. Graetz at a 2018 celebration of his 65 year marriage to Jeannie.

                           The Graetz at an ASU forum in 2015.

 

       Rev. and Mrs. Graetz at a 2016 Montgomery Gay Pride march.

 

 Rev. Graetz with Rev. Martin Luther King in the late 1950's.