I Am An American: Fred Gray, the civil rights attorney who desegregated the South
As a young civil rights attorney in the 1950’s South, Fred Gray set out to obliterate every law that kept it segregated.
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As a young civil rights attorney in the 1950’s South, Fred Gray set out to obliterate every law that kept it segregated. That practice began 62 years ago, when Gray came back from Ohio to practice law in Alabama — the state that forbid him from attending law school because of the color of his skin.
While greats like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks mobilized the masses in Montgomery where he was born, Gray quietly filed lawsuits that legally made it possible for the civil rights movement to keep moving.
He defended King and Parks from criminal charges. He worked with the Montgomery Bus Boycott, filing the suit that led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s condemnation of segregated bus systems. Suits he filed later desegregated higher learning institutions in Alabama.
“I have used the law to file a lawsuit so that African-Americans would be able to register and vote,” he expounded. “When the people were beaten back on what is now considered Bloody Sunday in Selma, they called me. I went across the (Edmund Pettus) bridge that night. And the next day before the close of day, I had filed (a) lawsuit.”
It forced officials to let people march from Selma to Montgomery, which influenced the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That act resulted in minorities not only being allowed the vote, but also to run for public office.
Another suit he filed led to African-Americans being allowed to serve on civil juries.
Then he looked around and realized that the federal government was still discriminating against black farmers.
“So we filed a case in 1968,” Gray said. “As a result of that suit, years later the heirs of black farmers who had been discriminated in farm subsidies were able to receive millions of dollars.”
Throughout the decades Gray’s work in the civil rights era proved to be not just pivotal, but unwavering.
“I have kept focused on what I started out with. I started out saying that I was going to become a lawyer, and use the law for the purpose of changing things,” Gray said. “And that’s what I have done.”
Profession: Civil rights attorney
Home: Tuskegee, Alabama
Mission: To desegregate the south by attacking segregationist laws
Q & A with Fred Gray
What does it mean to you to be an American?
It means to be able to live in a country where you have various freedoms and can participate in democracy. It means you're able to exercise your God-given rights and should be able to do so to the best of one's abilities without being discriminated against for anything.
What moment motivated you to launch this effort?
Problems that I saw in Montgomery, Alabama, as a teenager (motivated me). Those problems were African-Americans were being mistreated and were not receiving the same rights as other Americans. And I decided that I would try to do something about it. They told me that lawyers helped people, so I concluded that I was going to become a lawyer. I have kept focused on what I started out with. And I started out saying that I was going to become a lawyer, and use the law for the purpose of changing things. And that’s what I have done.
What gives you hope or what concerns you?
I am very much concerned about conditions as they exist in America. America was founded by people who came to this country for various freedoms - freedom of religion, political freedoms and other freedoms.
But there was one group of persons, African-Americans, who did not come to this country. People who looked like me. They were brought to this country as slaves. So we had to begin from slavery and had to go through the whole business of getting slavery done away with, going through reconstruction, then the long process of filing lawsuits so that African-Americans could receive the same rights that other Americans received when they came to this country and those others who were born here.
I think today we have a group of young people who have opportunities ... who need to realize that, as young people, can make a contribution. They can make a difference.
What do you hope to accomplish through your efforts?
My hope when I started is the same as my hope now: to help this country develop to the fullest intent of the Constitution.
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