United (Formerly Trinity) Lutheran Church Parsonage

This home was the church residence of Robert S. Graetz, a white Lutheran clergyman who pastored the black congregation of Trinity Lutheran, placing him in the midst of community hostility the year of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Graetz openly supported the Montgomery Bus Boycott. He formally joined the movement, becoming secretary of the Montgomery Improvement Association and frequently attending meetings led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

He and his family were regularly targeted by the Ku Klux Klan. Graetz had his tires slashed, his car booby-trapped, and was arrested on false charges. The parsonage was bombed three times; the largest bomb, which failed to explode, would have killed the Graetz family and leveled much of the block.

Address: 1104 Rosa L Parks Ave., Montgomery, AL 36108
Phone: (334) 262-4326
E-mail: unitednchrist@yahoo.com
Not open for public tours.

» View the moving oral history of the United (Formerly Trinity) Lutheran Church Parsonage on our sister platform, Voices of Alabama.