Robert Graetz (1928-2020) *92

was a Lutheran clergyman who, as the white pastor of a black congregation in Montgomery, Alabama, openly supported the Montgomery bus boycott, a landmark event of the civil rights movement. Graetz's first full-time job as pastor was to a Black congregation, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, in Montgomery. He began working there in 1955, the year of the Montgomery bus boycott. A personal friend of Rosa Parks, Graetz became secretary of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the organization founded to organize and support the boycott. The Sunday after Parks was arrested and the boycott began, he told his congregation, "Let’s try to make this boycott as effective as possible because it won’t be any boycott if half of us ride the buses and half don’t ride. So if we’re going to do it, let’s make a good job of it.” Graetz's support of the movement also included appearing at meetings led by Martin Luther King Jr.

While a few other whites in Montgomery supported the boycott, Graetz was the only white clergyman who did so. He and his family were ostracized by other whites and suffered several episodes of harassment: their tires were slashed, sugar was poured into the gas tank of their car, they received death threats, some of which were directed against their children, they were arrested, and bombs were planted at their home on three occasions; the largest, comprising 11 sticks of dynamite, did not explode.