Fred Gray | |
|---|---|
 Gray speaking atEmporia State University on September 15, 2016 | |
| Member of theAlabama House of Representatives | |
| In office 1971–2015 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Fred David Gray (1930-12-14)December 14, 1930 (age 94) Montgomery, Alabama, U.S. |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4 |
| Alma mater | Alabama State College (BA) Case Western Reserve University (JD) |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
| Awards | .svg) Presidential Medal of Freedom (2022) |
Fred David Gray (born December 14, 1930) is an American civil rights attorney, preacher, activist, and state legislator fromAlabama. He handled many prominent civil rights cases, such asBrowder v. Gayle, and was elected to theAlabama House of Representatives in 1970, along withThomas Reed, both from Tuskegee. They were the first black state legislators in Alabama in the 20th century.[1] He served as the president of theNational Bar Association in 1985, and in 2001 was elected as the first African-American President of theAlabama State Bar.[2]
Born inMontgomery, Alabama, Gray attended the Loveless School, where his aunt taught, until the seventh grade. He attended theNashville Christian Institute (NCI), a boarding school operated by theChurches of Christ, where he assisted NCI president and noted preacherMarshall Keeble in visiting other churches of the racially diverse nondenominational fellowship. After graduation, Gray matriculated atAlabama State College for Negroes, and received abaccalaureate degree in 1951.[3] Encouraged by a teacher to apply to law school despite his earlier plans to become an historian and preacher, Gray moved toCleveland, Ohio, and received ajuris doctor degree fromCase Western Reserve University School of Law in 1954.[3] 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.[4]
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 inTuskegee, Alabama, where he had moved.[3] Gray also served on the board of trustees forSouthwestern Christian College, ahistorically black college nearDallas, Texas affiliated with the Churches of Christ. In 2012Lipscomb University inNashville, Tennessee, also affiliated with the Churches of Christ bestowed adoctorate of humane lettershonoris causa upon Gray in 2012.[5] Gray once challenged Lipscomb's segregation practices.
During theCivil Rights Movement, Gray came to prominence working withMartin Luther King Jr. andE.D. Nixon, among others. In some of his first cases as a young Alabama attorney (and solo practitioner), Gray defendedClaudette Colvin and laterRosa Parks, who were charged with disorderly conduct for refusing to seat themselves in the rear of segregated city buses.
AfterAlabama Attorney GeneralJohn Malcolm Patterson effectively prohibited theNAACP 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 anall-white jury.[3]
Other notable civil rights cases brought and argued by Gray includedDixon v. Alabama (1961, which established due process rights for students at public universities),Gomillion v. Lightfoot (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") andWilliams v. Wallace (1963, which protected theSelma to Montgomery marchers). In anotherSupreme Court case, Gray was driven in his efforts to have theNAACP organize in Alabama after the group was forbidden in the state.[6]
Alabama resisted integration of public schools following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision inBrown v. Board of Education (1954) that ruled segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. Gray successfully representedVivian Malone andJames Hood, who had been denied admission to theUniversity of Alabama, and they entered the university despite GovernorGeorge Wallace'sStand in the Schoolhouse Door incident. In 1963 Gray successfully suedFlorence State University (nowUniversity of North Alabama) on behalf ofWendell Wilkie Gunn, who had been denied admission based on race. Gray also led the successful effort to desegregateAuburn University. In 1963 Gray filed theLee 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.[3]
In 1970, Gray, along withThomas J. Reed, became the first African Americans elected as legislators in Alabama sinceReconstruction. Gray's district included Tuskegee and parts ofBarbour,Bullock, andMacon counties.[7][8]
Gray's autobiography,Bus Ride to Justice, was published in 1994, and a revised edition in 2012.[9]
On December 18, 2024, a portrait of Fred Gray, created by artist Michael Shane Neal, was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, where it has since been included in the gallery's permanent collection.[10][11]
Browder v. Gayle 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 JudgeFrank Minis Johnson, Northern District of Alabama JudgeSeybourn Harris Lynne, and the fifth Circuit Court of Appeals JudgeRichard Rives. On June 5, 1956, the District Court Ruled 2–1, with Lynne dissenting, that bus segregation is unconstitutional under theEqual Protection Clause of theFourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution 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 ofClaudette Colvin. 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, president of the NAACP and secretary of the newMontgomery Improvement Association: andClifford Durr (a white lawyer who, with his wife,Virginia Foster Durr 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 attorneysRobert L. Carter andThurgood Marshall (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,Susie McDonald,Mary Louise Smith (activist), andJeanetta 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.[citation needed]
Gray also represented plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit about the controversial federalTuskegee Syphilis Study (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 awhistleblower reported the abuses to theWashington Star andThe New York Times, 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 19congenitally infected children were compensated[12] with medical, health and burial benefits managed by the USPHS'sCenters for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) several years later.
As a result of the lawsuit and settlement, the 1979Belmont Report was prepared and Congress passed federal laws. These were implemented by establishingInstitutional Review Boards 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 theDepartment of Health and Human Services.
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.[13]
On January 10, 1980, President Carter nominated Gray to be a judge on theUnited States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, to fill a vacancy created by JudgeFrank Minis Johnson's elevation to what then was theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.[14] Gray later asked his nomination be withdrawn, as happened on September 17, 1980; President Carter instead nominatedMyron Herbert Thompson to that seat.[15]
Gray married the former Bernice Hill, his secretary, in 1955, and they had four children.[3] He published his autobiography in 1995,Bus Ride to Justice: The Life and Works of Fred Gray.[citation needed] He is also a member ofOmega Psi Phi[16] andSigma Pi Phi.[17]
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In 1980, theSouthern Christian Leadership Conference awarded Gray its Drum Major Award. In 1996, theAmerican Bar Association 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 theAlabama Bar Association. In 2006, theNAACP recognized Gray's accomplishments with theWilliam Robert Ming Advocacy Award, citing the spirit of financial and personal sacrifice displayed in his legal work.[18]
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 theAlabama Memorial Preservation Act.[19]
In 2022, theUniversity of Alabama School of Law andPrinceton University awarded Gray honorary doctorates.[20][21] PresidentJoe Biden presented Gray with thePresidential Medal of Freedom on July 7, 2022.[22]
Gray is portrayed byCuba Gooding, Jr. in the 2014 filmSelma, which dramatizes theSelma to Montgomery marches and Gray's argument beforeJudge Frank Johnson that the march should be allowed to go forward.
Shawn Michael Howard portrays Gray in the 2001 filmBoycott, in which Gray, himself, plays a cameo role as a supporter ofMartin Luther King Jr.
Gray was portrayed by London Carlisle in the 2016 stage playThe Integration of Tuskegee High School. The production premiered atAuburn University, was written and directed by Tessa Carr, and dramatizes Gray's involvement in the case ofLee v. Macon County Board of Education.[23]
Gray is portrayed by Aki Omoshaybi in a 2018 episode ofDoctor Who, "Rosa".
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