This year, for the first time ever, Alabama State University’s chapter of Alpha Chi will induct graduate students into the honorary. The induction ceremony will be held Oct. 14 at 6 p.m. in the auditorium of the John L. Buskey Health Sciences Center.

Ms. Jeanie Graetz, a noted civil rights activist, will be honored and inducted, along with 13 undergraduate and 10 graduate students.

Graetz is the wife of the Rev. Robert Graetz, a white Lutheran clergyman who came to Montgomery in 1955 to minister to an all-black congregation and became close friends and supporters of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Rev. Graetz was the only white minister to openly support the Montgomery Bus Boycott and he and Jeanie Graetz openly supported both equal civil and voting rights for the city’s black residents. The Graetzes’ were often ridiculed and threatened by the Ku Klux Klan and their home was bombed three times during their stay in Montgomery, once while the family was at home. Miraculously no one was harmed by the huge explosion of dynamite.

Alpha Chi is a coeducational academic honor society. Since 1922, its purpose has been to promote academic excellence and exemplary character among college and university students and to honor those who achieve such distinction.

Membership to Alpha Chi is limited to the top 10 percent of an institution’s juniors, seniors and graduate students. Invitation to membership comes only through an institutional chapter. Some 300 chapters, located in almost every state and in Puerto Rico, induct more than 11,000 members annually.

Attendees are asked to RSVP Dr. D. Jordan or Dr. D. Harmon at dharmon@alasu.edu. For more information, call (334) 229-4616.