Reverend Robert S. Graetz, a white pastor of a black congregation in Montgomery during the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

   Reverend Robert S. Graetz,  a prominent leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, made his transition from mortality to immortality on Sunday, Sept. 20, 2020 at the age of 92.
    This writer, Uriah J. Fields, was a pastor and a student at Alabama State College (now University) about a year prior to the Montgomery Bus Boycott when Reverend Graetz became pastor of the Trinity Lutheran Church in Montgomery which had a black congregation. I was very much acquainted with the black minister who served as pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church before Graetz became the pastor.
     Soon after the Montgomery Bus Boycott began Graetz became the only white minister who participated in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. When he joined the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Martin Luther King  Jr, was president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, Uriah J. Fields was secretary, E. D. Nixon was treasurer and Ralph D. Abernathy was chair of the resolutions committee that drew-up resolutions that nearly 4000 people voted on approving the Bus Boycott. These things occurred on December 5, 1955, four days after Rosa Parks who had refused to give her bus seat to a white person was arrested and jailed.
     I will now present my tribute to Reverend Graetz which is what I said about him in my book: "The Montgomery Bus Boycott: The Unhappy Effects of the Montgomery Bus Boycott" that was published in 1959 when I was still a pastor in Montgomery, under the caption "The Leadership and Following of the Montgomery Improvement Association," the organization that conducted the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  I stated:
      "The Reverend Robert S. Graetz was another young man who did not figure prominently or outstandingly in the movement at first, but who became a hero as the movement advanced. Reverend Graetz, a member of the branch of the human race called white, became the youthful pastor of the Trinity Lutheran Church of Montgomery, which has a Negro congregation. Dedicated as he was to the cause of justice, his popularity grew not chiefly out of his dedication or achievement but because of his race. He was white, and it was commonly stated in Montgomery that Negroes do not have sense enough to work together or to out-think the white man. So it was assumed, for a period of time that Reverend Graetz was doing the thinking and furnishing the leadership for the Negroes behind the scenes, while, more truthfully, he was only giving his limited support that did not exceed that given by hundreds of ministers whose names have never been heard of outside of Montgomery. But surely, any white person who has courage enough to identify himself with the Negro in Alabama in deed or word becomes the center of attention and controversy overnight.
     Suffice it to be said that what has been stated is not to reflect on the character or integrity of Reverend Graetz. Personally, I  know of no other minister in whom I have greater confidence than Robert S. Graetz. My association with him leads me to believe that if there is one Christian minister in America, he must be that minister."  (pp. 25-26)
    During the wee hours of the morning white racists bombed four churches and two parsonages in Montgomery. One of these parsonages was Reverend Graetz's home and one of these churches was the church that I served as pastor.
    It was the former school, property of Trinity Lutheran Church, which, at this time was operated as a private school by a member of  Bell Street Baptist Church where I was pastor and where this congregation worshiped during most of the sixteen months while the Bell Street Baptist Church was being rebuilt.     
     I also salute Reverend Graetz's lovely wife and family who with him suffered the ordeal of a lifetime. I extend to you and your family my condolences.
     Reverend Robert Graetz, there were higher compensations for you than this world could ever afford. Now you can enjoy them in the presence of God eternally, much longer than the full life and highly favored 92 years you lived on earth.
Farewell my friend.