Each year they hosted the annual Graetz Symposium at the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture at Alabama State University.

[8] Graetz's first full-time job as pastor was to a Black congregation, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, in Montgomery.

[3] He and his family were ostracized by other whites and suffered several episodes of harassment: their tires were slashed,[11] sugar was poured into the gas tank of their car, they received death threats, some of which were directed against their children,[3] they were arrested,[12] and bombs were planted at their home on three occasions; the largest, comprising 11 sticks of dynamite, did not explode.

[3][11] Graetz wrote A White Preacher's Memoir: The Montgomery Bus Boycott (Black Belt Press, September 1999.

The book They Walked to Freedom 1955–1956: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Kenneth M. Hare (Sports Publishing LLC, 2005.