Graetz, a Lutheran, was the only white clergyman to support the boycott. He and his family persisted in the face of harassment, terrorism, and death threats that extended to their preschool children. Vandals poured sugar in their gas tank; slashed their tires and sprayed acid over their cars. The family home was bombed twice, and while arrests were made, no one was ever convicted.
In the first half of the 20th Century, White mob terror against Black Americans occurred across the nation, rural and urban, north and south. In 1910 alone, there were an estimated 16 massacres. The year 1919 was so deadly it was called The Red Summer, with more than 30 separate incidents.
I was learning to stand and kneel at the same time – to kneel in the sense of acknowledging that I’m not God, and you have as much right to your perspective as I do to mine. But I’ve also got to stand – to stand for what I believe and humbly trust is the right thing. And it doesn’t change everybody’s minds, but it does create a different atmosphere, and atmosphere does make a difference, especially over the long haul.
“He was a faithful Jew, as was Jesus. He knew the Law and the Prophets. He used that knowledge to argue for the truth of Jesus as Messiah. He lifted up Jewish social ethics, long embodied in the Law and extolled by the Prophets. Feeding and clothing the poor, widows, orphans wasn’t new but commanded, at least for the people of God. But his greater goal was to overarch the social doctrine in favor of the higher one, the one pointing to the Holy One of Israel.”