MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - A virtual memorial service is set for Sunday for Jean Graetz, one of the relatively few white people in Alabama who publicly supported equal rights for Black people at the start of the civil rights movement.
An announcement made on behalf of the family said the service could be viewed on YouTube from Montgomery’s First Baptist Church, an early bastion of the civil rights movement.
Graetz died in December less than three months following the death of husband Robert Graetz, the only white minister to openly support the yearlong Montgomery bus boycott, which began in late 1955. Described as a full partner of her husband in the movement, she was 90.
The parsonage where the couple lived was twice targeted by bombs, once when they were away and again in 1957, not long after the boycott ended, in a wave of attacks on civil rights leaders and churches.
In an interview with a Lutheran publication last year, Jean Graetz, who was known as “Jeannie” to many, said their activism was linked to the idea of “beloved community,” a vision of love and justice promoted by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“There is no such thing as race,” she said. “Scientists know this; we all have the same DNA, we’re all brothers and sisters, and we need to act like this is true.”
In-person attendance at the service will be limited because of the pandemic.
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