Rev. Robert S. & Jean Graetz

Rev. Robert S. and Jean Graetz. Advocates for Civil Rights. Robert S. Graetz Jr. was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, in 1928. He studied theology at Capital University and Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary, both in Ohio. Active in organizing campus social justice causes, he was also a member of the Columbus chapter of the NAACP. , Born on a farm near East Springfield, Pennsylvania, in 1929, Jean Ellis was a student at Capital University when she met Graetz. They married in 1951 and would have seven children together. The young couple arrived in Montgomery in 1955, where Rev. Graetz pastored the predominantly African American congregation of Trinity Lutheran Church. , Personally committed to the equality of all, Robert and Jean Graetz were among the small group of whites who supported the Montgomery Bus Boycott. They were confidants of several important figures in the yearlong endeavor, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. Rev. Graetz served as secretary of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which was organized to sustain the historic boycott. The Trinity parsonage where they lived was bombed twice., The Lutheran church transferred Rev. Graetz in 1957 but the couple frequently returned to Alabama and were participants in the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965. They remained beacons in the fight for equality wherever they were. Returning to Montgomery in 2005, the couple lived out their final years in this home. They died, three months apart, in 2020.