Word from Wiese

Risking Boldly

Risking Boldly

19 January 2022

What’s the riskiest move you’ve made?

How much have you risked for Jesus in your faith life? Legendary among Lutherans is the story of Pastor Bob Graetz. Bob grew up in a predominantly white community in West Virginia. But at seminary, Bob felt the Holy Spirit’s call to be a pioneer in our country’s civil rights movement. Bob and his amazing wife, Jeannie, accepted a call to move to a state they’d never visited: Alabama. Bob agreed to serve as the pastor of a primarily African American Lutheran congregation in Montgomery, becoming a trailblazer in the history of both the ELCA and Montgomery alike.

Suddenly, Bob found himself a colleague of another young pastor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and part of the planning team for the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Since blacks refused to take the bus, Bob spent several hours each morning and evening driving his black brothers and sisters in Christ wherever they needed to go. About seven years ago, the COS Go Getters were blessed to visit Montgomery for a Civil Rights Pilgrimage and the retired Pastor and Jeannie Graetz were gracious to serve as our tour-guides.


With our nation recognizing Martin Luther King Day this week, it’s my delight to share the story of this bold faith-risking Lutheran. The city of Montgomery just honored Pastor Bob with a new commemorative plaque in front the old Graetz parsonage. The parsonage was bombed twice by angry whites while the Graetzes served there. Pastor Bob planted a tree in the bomb’s crater, an incredible act of faith in God’s ability to bring new life out of even the scariest and darkest of situations. Enjoy the story!

Let us pray. Dear God, give me the insight to know when an injustice exists and your courage to play my part in improving the situation. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

From literature produced for the Votes of Alabama project with the Alabama African American Civil Rights Heritage Sites Consortium

A White Preacher’s Message

When in the summer of 1955, Lutheran Church officials sent a young white West Virginian to Montgomery, Alabama, to pastor an all-black congregation, they could not have foreseen that six months later he and his family would be thrust into a second American Revolution.

But they had chosen well. Young Bob Graetz had already studied and thought deeply about race and religion and about racial discrimination in America. He had started a race relations club at his Ohio college. He had served as student pastor of a black church in California. And when he and his young wife Jeannie, and their two children arrived in the Deep South, they moved happily and comfortably into Montgomery’s black community and were accepted. Among the friends they soon made were Raymond and Rosa Parks. Mrs. Park’s arrest, of course, triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and Bob and Jeannie were among the few whites who supported the first broad-based civil rights protest of the twentieth century. White thugs retaliated by bombing the Graetz’s home twice; their lives were threatened often.

But Graetz never wavered, and his Montgomery experiences shaped a long ministerial career that always emphasized equality and justice issues no matter where his call took him. Throughout his life, he spoke increasingly about white privilege, black forgiveness, and the present-day challenges for human and civil rights, including for gays and lesbians.

Reverend S. Graetz, Jr. served Lutheran churches in four states, always with a ministry dedicated to what his friend Martin Luther King Jr., termed the “beloved community.” On the fiftieth anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Graetz’s accepted a 2005-2007 appointment as ambassadors-in-residence to the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African American Culture at the Alabama State University, Montgomery, Alabama.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was catalyzed by the arrest of Mrs. Rosa Parks who, on December 1st, 1955, strategically refused to give up her seat to a white rider and move to the back of the bus. The 13-month long mass protest ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional. The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) and the Women’s Political Council coordinated the boycott which involved thousands of Montgomerians who walked to work, served as carpool drivers, cooked meals, printed flyers, advanced legal cases and much more. The bus boycott demonstrated the potential for non-violent mass protest to successfully challenge racial segregation and served as an example for other southern and global campaigns that followed.

Graetz explains, “Montgomery is significant as the site of the beginning of the modern civil rights movement. More important than its timing, however, was the nature of that movement in this city. Far different from the planned events in many cities in the years following, the Montgomery action was an almost spontaneous uprising by ordinary people who were hungry for an opportunity to take a stand against the oppression they experienced. The leadership was assembled only after the action had begun. That has to be the message of Montgomery; People, common ordinary people, can make a difference!

Surviving the Bombings: Freedom Never Dies

The Reverend Graetz and his family’s support of the Montgomery Bus Boycott drew a violent response from Montgomery’s White Citizen Council, the Ku Klux Klan. The Parsonage was bombed two times, once while the Graetzs were away at the Highlander Folk School and once when they were at home with their five small children.

In the multiple bombings and subsequent acquittals of the suspects, it seemed that they had lost the battle, but, as Graetz explains, “the real victory was already ours. Never again would the relationship between the black and white of Montgomery, or of the nation, be the same. The “Movement” which began on December 1, 1955, would not be stopped”( Page 99, A White Preachers Message, 2006).

The Montgomery Pledge

I believe that every person has worth as an individual.
I believe that every person is entitled to dignity and respect, regardless of race or color, faith or sexual orientation.
I believe that every thought and every act of prejudice is harmful; if it’s my thought or act, then it is harmful to me as well as others.
Therefore, from this day forward I will strive daily to eliminate all forms of prejudice from my thoughts and actions.
I will discourage racial prejudice and all forms of discrimination by others at every opportunity.
I will treat all people with dignity and respect; and I will strive daily to honor this pledge, knowing that the world will be a better place because of my effort.

Graetz Parsonage