Fred David Gray (born December 14, 1930) is an American civil rights attorney, preacher, and activist from
Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...
. He litigated several major civil rights cases in Alabama, including some, such as ''
Browder v. Gayle
''Browder v. Gayle'', 142 F. Supp. 707 (1956),[''Browder v. Gayle''](_blank)
14 ...
'', that reached the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
. He served as the president of the
National Bar Association
The National Bar Association (NBA) was founded in 1925 and is the nation's oldest and largest national network of predominantly African-American attorneys and judges. It represents the interests of approximately 65,000 lawyers, judges, law profess ...
in 1985, and in 2001 was elected as the first African-American President of the
Alabama State Bar
The Alabama State Bar is the integrated (mandatory) bar association of the U.S. state of Alabama.
The Alabama State Bar was established in 1923 and is governed by th1975 Alabama Code, Title 34, Chapter 3
It is the "licensing and regulatory age ...
.
Early life
Born in
Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. In the 202 ...
, Gray attended the Loveless School, where his aunt taught, until the seventh grade. He attended the
Nashville Christian Institute (NCI), a boarding school operated by the
Churches of Christ
The Churches of Christ is a loose association of autonomous Christian congregations based on the ''sola scriptura'' doctrine. Their practices are based on Bible texts and draw on the early Christian church as described in the New Testament.
T ...
, where he assisted NCI president and noted preacher
Marshall Keeble in visiting other churches of the racially diverse nondenominational fellowship. After graduation, Gray matriculated at
Alabama State College for Negroes
Alabama State University (ASU) is a public historically black university in Montgomery, Alabama. Founded in 1867, ASU is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
History
Alabama State University was founded in 1867 as the ...
, and received a
baccalaureate degree
A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ye ...
in 1951.
Encouraged by a teacher to apply to law school despite his earlier plans to become an historian and preacher, Gray moved to
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
, and received a ''
juris doctor
The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law
and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...
'' degree from
Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Case Western Reserve University School of Law is one of eight schools at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. It was one of the first schools accredited by the American Bar Association. It is a member of the Association of American ...
in 1954.
At the time there was no law school in Alabama that would accept African Americans.
After passing the bar examination, Gray returned to his home town and established a law office. He also began preaching at the Holt Street Church of Christ, where his parents had long been devout members.
Career as a preacher
In 1957, Gray fulfilled his mother's dream by becoming a preacher in Churches of Christ. In 1974, he helped merge white and black congregations in
Tuskegee, Alabama
Tuskegee () is a city in Macon County, Alabama, United States. It was founded and laid out in 1833 by General Thomas Simpson Woodward, a Creek War veteran under Andrew Jackson, and made the county seat that year. It was incorporated in 1843. ...
, where he had moved.
Gray also served on the board of trustees for
Southwestern Christian College
Southwestern Christian College (SwCC) is a private historically black Christian college in Terrell, Texas.
History
SwCC was founded in 1948 by the educator and minister G. P. Bowser under the name Southern Bible Institute in Fort Worth, Texa ...
, a
historically black college
Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. Mo ...
near
Dallas, Texas
Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County w ...
affiliated with the Churches of Christ. In 2012
Lipscomb University
Lipscomb University is a private university in Nashville, Tennessee. It is affiliated with the Churches of Christ. The campus is located in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville, between Belmont Boulevard to the west and Granny White Pike on ...
in
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...
, also affiliated with the Churches of Christ bestowed a
doctorate of humane letters
The degree of Doctor of Humane Letters (; DHumLitt; DHL; or LHD) is an honorary degree awarded to those who have distinguished themselves through humanitarian and philanthropic contributions to society.
The criteria for awarding the degree differ ...
''
honoris causa
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...
'' upon Gray in 2012. Gray once challenged Lipscomb's segregation practices.
Civil Rights Movement
During the
Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
, Gray came to prominence working with
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
and
E.D. Nixon, among others. In some of his first cases as a young Alabama attorney (and solo practitioner), Gray defended
Claudette Colvin
Claudette Colvin (born Claudette Austin; September 5, 1939) is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up ...
and later
Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as "the ...
, who were charged with disorderly conduct for refusing to seat themselves in the rear of segregated city buses.
After
Alabama Attorney General
The Attorney General of Alabama is an elected, constitutional officer of the State of Alabama. The office of the Attorney General is located at the state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama. Henry Hitchcock was elected Alabama's first attorney general ...
John Malcolm Patterson
John Malcolm Patterson (September 27, 1921 – June 4, 2021) was an American politician. Despite having never stood for public office before he served one term as Attorney General of Alabama from 1955 to 1959, and, at age 37, served one term as ...
effectively prohibited the
NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
from operating in Alabama in 1956, Gray provided legal counsel for eight years (including three trips through the state court system and two through federal courts) until the organization was permitted to operate in the state. He also successfully defended Martin Luther King Jr. from charges of tax evasion in 1960, winning an acquittal from an
all-white jury
Racial discrimination in jury selection is specifically prohibited by law in many jurisdictions throughout the world. In the United States, it has been defined through a series of judicial decisions. However, juries composed solely of one racial ...
.
Other notable civil rights cases brought and argued by Gray included ''
Dixon v. Alabama
''Dixon v. Alabama'', 294 Federal Reporter, F.2d 150 (5th Cir. 1961) was a landmark 1961 U.S. federal court decision that spelled the end of the doctrine that colleges and universities could act ''in loco parentis'' to discipline or expel their ...
'' (1961, which established due process rights for students at public universities), ''
Gomillion v. Lightfoot
''Gomillion v. Lightfoot'', 364 U.S. 339 (1960), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that found an electoral district with boundaries created to disenfranchise African Americans violated the Fifteenth Amendment.
Bac ...
'' (1962, which overturned state redistricting of Tuskegee that excluded most of the majority-black residents; this contributed to laying a foundation for "one man, one vote") and ''
Williams v. Wallace'' (1963, which protected the
Selma to Montgomery marchers). In another
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
case, Gray was driven in his efforts to have the
NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
organize in Alabama after the group was forbidden in the state.
![Fred Gray and Terri Sewell](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Fred_Gray_and_Terri_Sewell.jpg)
Alabama resisted integration of public schools following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in ''
Brown v. Board of Education
''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...
'' (1954) that ruled segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. Gray successfully represented
Vivian Malone
Vivian Juanita Malone Jones (July 15, 1942 – October 13, 2005) was one of the first two black students to enroll at the University of Alabama in 1963, and in 1965 became the university's first black graduate. She was made famous when George Wal ...
and
James Hood
James Alexander Hood (November 10, 1942 – January 17, 2013) was one of the first African Americans to enroll at the University of Alabama in 1963, and was made famous when Alabama Governor George Wallace attempted to block him and fellow ...
, who had been denied admission to the
University of Alabama
The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, or Bama) is a Public university, public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and la ...
, and they entered the university despite Governor
George Wallace
George Corley Wallace Jr. (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was an American politician who served as the 45th governor of Alabama for four terms. A member of the Democratic Party, he is best remembered for his staunch segregationist and ...
's
Stand in the Schoolhouse Door
The Stand in the Schoolhouse Door took place at Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963. George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, in a symbolic attempt to keep his inaugural promise of " segregation now, segregation tom ...
incident. In 1963 Gray successfully sued
Florence State University (now
University of North Alabama
The University of North Alabama (UNA) is a public university in Florence, Alabama. It is the state's oldest public university. Occupying a campus in a residential section of Florence, UNA is located within a four-city area that also includes ...
) on behalf of
Wendell Wilkie Gunn
Wendell Wilkie Gunn (born September 23, 1942) is a retired corporate executive, a former Reagan Administration official, and the first African American student to enroll and graduate from the University of North Alabama in 1965 (then Florence State ...
, who had been denied admission based on race. Gray also led the successful effort to desegregate
Auburn University
Auburn University (AU or Auburn) is a public land-grant research university in Auburn, Alabama. With more than 24,600 undergraduate students and a total enrollment of more than 30,000 with 1,330 faculty members, Auburn is the second largest uni ...
. In 1963 Gray filed the ''
Lee v. Macon County Board of Education'' case, which in 1967 led a three-judge panel of U.S. District Judges to order all Alabama public schools not already subject to court orders to desegregate. Lawsuits filed by Gray helped desegregate more than 100 local school systems, as well as all public colleges and universities in his home state.
In 1970, Gray, along with
Thomas J. Reed, became the first African Americans elected as legislators in Alabama since
Reconstruction
Reconstruction may refer to:
Politics, history, and sociology
*Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company
*'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...
. Gray's district included Tuskegee and parts of
Barbour,
Bullock
Bullock may refer to:
Animals
* Bullock (in British English), a castrated male bovine animal of any age
* Bullock (in North America), a young bull (an uncastrated male bovine animal)
* Bullock (in Australia, India and New Zealand), an ox, an adu ...
, and
Macon counties.
Gray's autobiography, ''Bus Ride to Justice'', was published in 1994, and a revised edition in 2012.
''Browder v. Gayle''
''
Browder v. Gayle
''Browder v. Gayle'', 142 F. Supp. 707 (1956),[''Browder v. Gayle''](_blank)
14 ...
'' was a court case heard before a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on Montgomery and Alabama state bus segregation laws. The panel consisted of Middle District of Alabama Judge
Frank Minis Johnson
Frank Minis Johnson Jr. (October 30, 1918 – July 23, 1999) was a United States federal judge, United States district judge and United States Circuit Judge serving 1955 to 1999 on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alaba ...
, Northern District of Alabama Judge
Seybourn Harris Lynne
Seybourn Harris Lynne (July 25, 1907 – September 10, 2000) was an American jurist. He was United States district judge for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. He was Chief Judge of the court from 1953 to 1973. ...
, and the fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge
Richard Rives
Richard Taylor Rives (January 15, 1895 – October 27, 1982) was an American lawyer and judge. A native of Alabama, he was the sole Democrat among the "Fifth Circuit Four," four United States Circuit Judges of the United States Court of Appeals f ...
. On June 5, 1956, the District Court Ruled 2–1, with Lynne dissenting, that bus segregation is unconstitutional under the
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "''nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal ...
of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Often considered as one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and ...
to the U.S. Constitution
Later the state and city would appeal the decision, which later went to the Supreme Court on November 13, 1956. A motion of clarification and the rehearing of the case was later declined on December 17, 1956.
Shortly after the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in December 1955, many black community leaders were discussing whether they would file a federal lawsuit to try to challenge the City of Montgomery and Alabama about the bus segregation laws.
About two months after the bus boycott began, civil rights activists reconsidered the case of
Claudette Colvin
Claudette Colvin (born Claudette Austin; September 5, 1939) is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up ...
. She was a 15-year-old who had been the first person arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, nine months prior to Rosa Parks's actions. Fred Gray,
E. D. Nixon
Edgar Daniel Nixon (July 12, 1899 – February 25, 1987), known as E. D. Nixon, was an American civil rights leader and union organizer in Alabama who played a crucial role in organizing the landmark Montgomery bus boycott there in 1955. The boy ...
, president of the NAACP and secretary of the new
Montgomery Improvement Association The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was formed on December 5, 1955 by black ministers and community leaders in Montgomery, Alabama. Under the leadership of Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Edgar Nixon, the MIA was instrumental in ...
: and
Clifford Durr
Clifford Judkins Durr (March 2, 1899 – May 12, 1975) was an Alabama lawyer who played an important role in defending activists and others accused of disloyalty during the New Deal and McCarthy eras. He also was the lawyer who represented ...
(a white lawyer who, with his wife,
Virginia Foster Durr
Virginia Foster Durr (August 6, 1903 – February 24, 1999) was an American civil rights activist and lobbyist. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1903 to Dr. Sterling Foster, an Alabama Presbyterian minister, and Ann Patterson Foster. At ...
was an activist in the Civil Rights Movement) searched for the ideal case law to challenge the constitutional legitimacy of the Montgomery and Alabama bus segregation laws.
Gray later did research for the lawsuit and consulted with NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys
Robert L. Carter
Robert Lee Carter (March 11, 1917 – January 3, 2012) was an American lawyer, civil rights activist and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Personal history and early life
...
and
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-A ...
(who would late become United States Solicitor General and the first African-American United States Supreme Court Justice). Gray later approached Claudette Colvin,
Aurelia Browder
Aurelia Shines Browder Coleman (January 29, 1919 – February 4, 1971) was an African-American civil rights activist in Montgomery, Alabama. In April 1955, almost eight months before the arrest of Rosa Parks and a month after the arrest of Claude ...
,
Susie McDonald,
Mary Louise Smith (activist)
Mary Louise Ware ( Smith; born 1937) is an African-American civil rights activist. She was arrested in October 1955 at the age of 18 in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her seat on the segregated bus system. She is one of several women ...
, and
Jeanetta Reese, all women who had been discriminated against by the drivers enforcing segregation policy in the Montgomery bus system. They all agreed to become plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit (except Jeanetta Reese due to intimidation by the members of the white community), thus bypassing the Alabama court system. Jeanetta Reese later falsely claimed she did not agree to the lawsuit which made the lawsuit an unsuccessful attempt to disbar Gray for supposedly improperly representing her.
Tuskegee experiment lawsuit
Gray also represented plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit about the controversial federal
Tuskegee Syphilis Study
The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male (informally referred to as the Tuskegee Experiment or Tuskegee Syphilis Study) was a study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service (PHS) and the Cente ...
(1932-1972). During the Great Depression, the study was changed to review untreated syphilis in rural African-American male subjects, who thought they were receiving free health care and funeral benefits. Gray filed the case, ''Pollard v. U.S. Public Health Service'', in 1972, after a
whistleblower
A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...
reported the abuses to the ''
Washington Star
''The Washington Star'', previously known as the ''Washington Star-News'' and the Washington ''Evening Star'', was a daily afternoon newspaper published in Washington, D.C., between 1852 and 1981. The Sunday edition was known as the ''Sunday Star ...
'' and ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
,'' which investigated further and published stories. In 1975, Gray achieved a successful settlement for $10 million and medical treatment for those 72 subjects still living of the original 399. (Penicillin had become a standard treatment by 1947, although research subjects were specifically denied that treatment as well as their true diagnosis.) The 40 subsequently infected spouses and 19
congenitally infected children were compensated with medical, health and burial benefits managed by the USPHS's
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...
(CDC) several years later.
As a result of the lawsuit and settlement, the 1979
Belmont Report
The ''Belmont Report'' is a report created by the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. Its full title is the ''Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human ...
was prepared and Congress passed federal laws. These were implemented by establishing
Institutional Review Board
An institutional review board (IRB), also known as an independent ethics committee (IEC), ethical review board (ERB), or research ethics board (REB), is a committee that applies research ethics by reviewing the methods proposed for research to ens ...
s for the protection of human research subjects and the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research within the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, now the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) in the
Department of Health and Human Services
The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the U.S. federal government created to protect the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is " ...
.
In 1997 Gray founded (and subsequently served as president and board member of) the Tuskegee History Center. This nonprofit corporation operates a museum and offers educational resources concerning the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, as well as contributions made by various ethnic groups in the fields of human and civil rights.
Judicial nomination
On January 10, 1980, President Carter nominated Gray to be a judge on the
, to fill a vacancy created by Judge
Frank Minis Johnson
Frank Minis Johnson Jr. (October 30, 1918 – July 23, 1999) was a United States federal judge, United States district judge and United States Circuit Judge serving 1955 to 1999 on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alaba ...
's elevation to what then was the
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (in case citations, 5th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following federal judicial districts:
* Eastern District of Louisiana
* M ...
. Gray later asked his nomination be withdrawn, as happened on September 17, 1980; President Carter instead nominated
Myron Herbert Thompson
Myron Herbert Thompson (born January 7, 1947) is a Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.
Education and career
Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, Thompson received a Bachelor of Art ...
to that seat.
Personal life
Gray married the former Bernice Hill, his secretary, in 1955, and they had four children.
He published his autobiography in 1995, ''Bus Ride to Justice: The Life and Works of Fred Gray''. He is also a member of
Omega Psi Phi
Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. () is a historically African-American fraternity. The fraternity was founded on November 17, 1911, by three Howard University juniors Edgar Amos Love, Oscar James Cooper and Frank Coleman, and their faculty advi ...
and
Sigma Pi Phi
Sigma Pi Phi (), also known as The Boulé, founded in 1904, is the oldest fraternity for African Americans among those named with Greek letters. The fraternity does not have collegiate chapters and is designed for professionals at mid-career or o ...
.
Awards
![P20220707AS-1475 (52308217996)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/P20220707AS-1475_%2852308217996%29.jpg)
In 1980, the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civi ...
awarded Gray its Drum Major Award. In 1996, the
American Bar Association
The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...
awarded Gray its Spirit of Excellence Award (having awarded him its Equal Justice Award in 1977). The National Bar Association awarded him its C. Frances Stradford Award. In 2002, Gray became the first African-American president of the
Alabama Bar Association
The Alabama State Bar is the Bar association#Mandatory, integrated or unified bar associations, integrated (mandatory) bar association of the U.S. state of Alabama.
The Alabama State Bar was established in 1923 and is governed by th1975 Alabama ...
. In 2006, the
NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
recognized Gray's accomplishments with the
William Robert Ming Advocacy Award, citing the spirit of financial and personal sacrifice displayed in his legal work.
Gray's hometown of Montgomery renamed the street he grew up on after him in 2021. The street was previously named Jefferson Davis Avenue, so the change is a potential violation of the
Alabama Memorial Preservation Act.
In 2022, the
University of Alabama School of Law
The University of Alabama School of Law, (formerly known as the Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr. School of Law at The University of Alabama) located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama is a nationally ranked top-tier law school and the only public law school in the sta ...
and
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
awarded Gray honorary doctorates. President
Joe Biden presented Gray with the
Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merito ...
on July 7, 2022.
In popular culture
Gray is portrayed by
Cuba Gooding, Jr.
Cuba Mark Gooding Jr. (born January 2, 1968) is an American actor. He is the recipient of an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Emmy nomination.
After his breakthrough role as Tre Styles in ''Boyz n the Hood'' (1991), he appeare ...
in the 2014 film
''Selma'', which dramatizes the
Selma to Montgomery marches
The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the ...
and Gray's argument before
Judge Frank Johnson that the march should be allowed to go forward.
Shawn Michael Howard
Shawn Michael Howard (born July 31, 1969) is an American film, television and theater actor.
Howard was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Olivia C. and Frank Howard, Jr., brother of Brad Howard and Tyrone Scott Howard. Father of Elijah Howard ...
portrays Gray in the 2001 film ''
Boycott
A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict som ...
'', in which Gray, himself, plays a cameo role as a supporter of
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
Gray was depicted in the 2016 stage play ''
The Integration of Tuskegee High School
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
''. The production premiered at
Auburn University
Auburn University (AU or Auburn) is a public land-grant research university in Auburn, Alabama. With more than 24,600 undergraduate students and a total enrollment of more than 30,000 with 1,330 faculty members, Auburn is the second largest uni ...
, was written and directed by Tessa Carr, and dramatizes Gray's involvement in the case of ''Lee v. Macon County Board of Education''.
Gray is portrayed by Aki Omoshaybi in a 2018 episode of ''Doctor Who'', "
Rosa
Rosa or De Rosa may refer to:
People
*Rosa (given name)
* Rosa (surname)
*Santa Rosa (female given name from Latin-a latinized variant of Rose)
Places
*223 Rosa, an asteroid
*Rosa, Alabama, a town, United States
* Rosa, Germany, in Thuringia, G ...
".
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, Fred
1930 births
Living people
African-American lawyers
Activists for African-American civil rights
Alabama State University alumni
Alabama lawyers
American civil rights lawyers
American members of the Churches of Christ
Case Western Reserve University alumni
Case Western Reserve University School of Law alumni
Lipscomb University alumni
Lawyers from Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery bus boycott
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Selma to Montgomery marches