Bombed by the K.K.K. A Friend of Rosa Parks. At 90, This White Pastor Is Still Fighting.

This broke my heart. It is too bad that the Nobel Peace Prize committee does not see the everyday individuals who sacrificed so much to change the world. I don't often wish that I were rich, but when I do, it is so I could write a check that would let a couple like this live out their final years with the means they need to have adequate health care, a comfortable residence, and respite. I know that Heather Heyer is not the only white person or white female that gave the ultimate so that people of my race could be free. Here is a thought---the New York Times doing a major story on these people. I would rather see that than some of the people that are the conspicuous consumers who too often make the cover of the Magazine.

The Rev. Graetz is the rare lucid American who has always acted as he believed. He is right to speak about the terrifying period we live in. God bless him and his family.

These selfless acts of courage during a time of the Country's [internal] conflict speaks volumes of an individual's heroism and should be honored. America has a history filled with heroes that facilitated much needed [internal] change. As this article memorializes, Mr. Graetz and his family's support of Ms. Parks has gone unrecognized in the history books far too long.

What a lovely story and a lovely family. Thank you.

Thank you for a booster rocket of inspiration in this divisive time. How grateful we are to Rev. Graetz and his family for showing us the way and being a beacon of hope along with Ms. Parks.

A wonderful portrait of an American hero. May he inspire more of us to act with intention upon waking up each and every morning.

Here is a man who talked the talk and walked the walk in a time and place where doing so could mean your life. We need more people like Rev. Graetz today, men and women of conscience and character who are willing to stand up for what is right and just even when what is right and just is not what is popular, is not accepted as truth, and is scorned. Trump voters, take note: this is what American greatness looks like.

Alabama may have changed, superficially, but it's still Alabama. The white power elite still pit the poor whites against the blacks, but with "Mexicans" added. Unions are still vilified. Voter suppression is rampant. Religion is no longer openly used to justify racial oppression, but it still comes in mighty handy to justify oppression of sexual and gender minorities. Divide and rule continues, because it continues to work. Meanwhile, the Republican party is George Wallace gone nationwide. But, hey, they sure have some great football! For the record, I was born, raised, and live farther south than Birmingham.

A very important reminder that there have always been white folks who've put their lives, property & livelihoods on the line for racial justice. We need to study these role models and takes cues. As the Rev. said, we are living in extremely dangerous times. We must all move from complacency towards action. It is not enough to say racism is bad or foolish. What are you doing to end racism? Inaction only bolsters the status quo.

"Anytime I see two people getting together and smiling." That's so simple it made me cry.

If you go against the tribe you are in, and go with the truth, you will most always be vilified even more than are those with whom you are standing with. If it is one thing, that the tribe can't take is any one pointing out, by their actions something that humiliates the tribe. It is that way, especially in small towns, even to this day. Standing for the truth, often, though, draws people to reexamine their views on issues, etc. which it should do, but it is a slow process.

The righteous whites like this pastor deserve to be recognized, remembered and honored. John Brown, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo gave up their lives for human beings of a darker color aka race. But 55%, 59 % 58% of white voters voted white Republican in the Presidential campaign and election of in 2008, 2012 and 2016. While blacks voted 90%+ for the Democrat in each of those elections. MAGA means make America white again.

Thank you, Alan Blinder, for this story. I'm glad to know about this amazing man and his family. I find it incredible (now, as then) that there are so many people who believe they are superior to others, not because of their character, intelligence or actions, but because of a congenital characteristic. It's profoundly sad that for so long, so many people have put their energies into hatred, intimidation and violence - all destructive - instead of into constructive and helpful endeavors. They couldn't do this without the support of their environments, including their churches. Why are religious people such as Mr. Graetz so rare?

Thank you, Alan, for recording Bob while he is still with us. Unmentioned in this piece, but detailed in Bob's book, "A White Preacher's Message on Race and Reconciliation," (New South Books 2006) is the second civil rights movement that he and Jeannie joined after finally embracing their gay son, Robert III, (who later took the name Ray) born in 1954 (the year before the bus boycott) and who died of AIDS in San Francisco in 1991. Caught between church dogma and love of their son, Bob and Jeannie again found themselves in the forefront of a human rights struggle. His honest portrayal of a preacher/father's struggle and decision is a timeless lesson. Watching his son die, he writes, "I realized how much more closely the gay community was keeping to God's expectations for us, in the ways they cared for one another. My theology had met reality, and it had to evolve." In 2008 Trish O'Kane and I asked Bob to marry us on a pontoon boat in the Alabama River in Montgomery. In a meeting beforehand, he asked what we wanted. "Don't make it religious," I said. Out on the water, accompanied by his wife Jeannie and 10 of our closest friends, the Rev. Graetz, in a beautiful homily, asked us to "throw down our anchors together." He and Jeannie gave us a copy of his book as a wedding gift, and signed it, "Let us work together to keep the dream alive."

Excellent profile of a wonderful man and his family. I was in college in Los Angeles in the late 60s, and was in a seminar. I had been raised in Southern California and while I was aware of segregation and racism having seen it on TV and witnesses in person when I took a student tour of the US one summer when I was 15. But the personal impact for persons living under the boot of segregation hit home when a young women in my seminar spoke about the day that she and her family were at the church in Birmingham when it was bombed. She had tears in her eyes when spoke about the young girls who died, one of whom had been her close friend.

What an inspiring story! Can you imagine how much better our world would be today if more people followed Rev. Graetz's example of courage, sense of justice and love?

Your article reminds us how fragile the civil rights movement and our young democracy are. We all witnessed the killing of protester in Charlottesville Virginia on television. We cannot be complacent. Vote on November 6, 2018.

Boy, I was totally unprepared for Rev. Graetz's answer to the question about America today. I would have thought that his personal knowledge of the violence and hatred inflaming the early civil rights movement would have made today's American seem benign. I was expecting him to give a nod to Obama's historic presidency and credit the distance America has come toward being an honorable society. So for Rev. Graetz so say that Trump's America is more dangerous than what he witnessed in the 1950's and 60's is deeply troubling - really scary.

I want to thank The New York Times for doing this story/interview on the Reverend Robert Graetz. I recall him so vividly in those bygone civil rights days and in the literature of that period. I love your newspaper for not letting this history fade. I am a white backwoods newspaperman who honors those who fought and died for equality under the law.

Thanks for the interesting story. Dynamite was a favorite weapon of the Klan throughout the South. In 1995 I had the good fortune to spend some time with my father's cousin, Clay Gardenhire, then living in Sarasota. I confirmed the stories that the Klan had twice tried to blow him up when he was on the city council of Bartow, Fl around 1950. Their sins--nothing had been done to the city's infrastructure since the start of the Depression and the council started with re-paving old streets and paving the dirt roads in the "Colored section" of town, but before paving those roads they had running water and sewers put in. Clay said, "They were in my office, their jowls aquivering red faced with anger. They talked about separate but equal, but they never meant equal." Clay was a decorated WWII vet originally from Texas and he would not back down. So they resorted to dynamite of course.

It's a few islands of decent individuals like Rev. Robert S. Graetz who dot a sea of "Christians" who run their churches as political parties that stops me from dismissing religious people as fraud altogether. Thank you sir, for your decency.

This what living the Gospels is all about. Thank the Almighty for people such as Rev. Graetz.

Reading about authentic everyday heroes never gets old and, importantly, helps us understand that a single committed person makes a difference - inspiring and much needed in these times - thank you!

Can any Southerner (and I am a Southerner) justify the role of the Southern white churches in Slavery, the Civil War, Jim Crow legislation and actions, Segregation, Lynchings, preventing blacks from voting? Explain how they followed the teachings of Jesus Christ in each of these areas. Have any churches repented? Have any done anything to compensate for their past actions? The churches are still here and preach to the public every Sunday about Jesus and how people should act. These are relevant questions. What do they say?

Why have I never read this story before? I have always read every story that I saw online and in the newspaper about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King and others in the movement. I am glad you published this story about the brave and wonderful Graetz family.

My minister's house was bombed by the KKK. They also bombed the church, in 1965, in New Orleans, because he allowed black people to attend the mostly white church. He also was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee because some housewife had denounced him as a Communist. He had been involved in the civil rights movement since the early 50's and the FBI thought they were all Communists. The KKK would call him up at 2 or 3 in the morning and say there was a bomb in the house, he had ten minutes to get out. They eventually caught the two men and sentenced them to five years in jail. They lived in the small town where I live now, but I didn't know that when my family moved here ten years later. It's about 40 miles from Bogalusa, La. that was once called the KKK capitol of the USA because there were so many of them. The city attorney was KKK as was the entire police force. Two black cops were hired on the department but they didn't last long. They were both killed. The conspicuously white people have a word for whites who associate with blacks. They are called (guess), and I am one of them. That's one reason that liberals who agitate for gun control are not my allies. Figure that one out.

The minds that set those bombs live on in some Americans today. And over the past couple of years, Mr. Trump has stirred up the barrel and brought them to the surface. I'd like to think that's a silver lining of his political emergence - that now there is a window of opportunity to connect those people with the real world. But I have no idea how to do that or whether it's possible. A friend of mine likes to point out that there's a bell curve to everything. If so - if there will always be pockets of hateful racists in society - is it better that they lie dormant or become engaged (as now)?

Thank you for this piece -- very inspiring, and very informational. I doubt a lot of people knew about this or about the couple involved. The hope maintained here is crucial -- our age now has bred so much cynicism and division that it is hard to keep a positive spirit. Trump et al. have developed a deep sense of anger on both sides that finding reconciliation seems impossible. So my gratitude for a piece that speaks of an outlook of good overcoming darkness -- having one's home bombed has to be worse than Republicans in office. Two people gathered together smiling -- that's indeed inspiring!

Thanks for brightening my day.

People who had real courage like the Graetz family are important reasons why Alabama and Montgomery are better places now than they were back when the KKK used terror to preserve segregation. Montgomery is facing its past, as new memorials to civil rights and lynching victims open in the city. It is important to remember that hatred of people because of who they are is hardly dead, not here, not in many places, so be inspired by this families fight against hatred. Their fight is worth emulating.

This article prompts me to mention another white Lutheran pastor of a southern African American church (in Birmingham), the Rev. Joseph Ellwanger, who played a key role in the Civil Rights Movement. He currently lives in Milwaukee. He was the only white southern clergy person invited by Dr. King to be involved in key meetings with LBJ and George Wallace. He was the leader of group of white Alabamans for social justice which was involved in a tense demonstration in Selma the night before Bloody Sunday. He grew up in Selma where his father was president of what became the recently closed Concordia College. He, too, had to deal with Klan threats and violence.

All thanks to Robert Graetz and his family for helping to make America overcome at least some of its bigotry. I went to army ROTC summer camp in Georgia in 1955. Coming from Iowa at the time it broke my heart to see the segregation even in the churches at that time. I protested and was probably lucky to come out alive. It was such a great day when Barak Obama was elected president and now look at us.

Way too many white Christians forget that Jesus was not white!

Heartfelt thanks to Rev. Robert S. Graetz and all the other Socially Conscious people of every color and race who were part of the civil rights movement. The very sad reality is that WE THE PEOPLE - especially women of all colors and blacks - still have to fight it. We thought we "fixed" it in the 60s and 70s and went on with our lives. The "civilization destroyers" had other ideas and have finally reached the culmination of their 40+ year hostile financial takeover of OUR United States of America. WE THE PEOPLE must fight like hell right now to preserve/restore true democracy in America. Then we must watch OUR elected/hired leaders like hawks to make sure they are working for 99% of us - not the Robber Barons. Democracy is not a spectator sport. Every single American who values the life they have enjoyed since WWII must work to preserve/restore the one thing they value most. If each of us do that there will never be a successful hostile financial takeover. NOW is the time to take action.

thank you for this wonderful article. we all need to remember the battle and it’s heros in order to inspire us for today’s battle. very glad - inspired- to read about rev graetz and his wife and children, and their incredible bravery to make positive, lasting change.

I'm optimistic that the democrats will retake the house and that there will be completely new leadership in 2020. When that happens, the truth will finally come out about Trump and the republicans who have pledged to protect the constitution and flouted that sacred pledge. It is not that far away and the world will become a much safer place for my children and grandchildren.