Robert S. Graetz

Robert S. Graetz

ROBERT 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.” Now retired, he remains active with numerous progressive organizations and in civil rights causes. With his wife, Jeannie Ellis Graetz, he leads study tours of Deep South civil rights sites for U.S. and international students and visitors. The Graetzes live permanently near McArthur, Ohio, but, coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, they accepted a 2005-07 appointment as ambassadors-in-residence for the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African American Culture at Alabama State University, Montgomery, Alabama.