Fred Gray
In 2024, our annual Legacy Luncheon took on a new form—a special one-night event honoring Fred Gray, an inspiring attorney and Civil Rights legend.
Fred D. Gray is the senior partner of the law firm of Gray, Langford, Sapp, McGowan, Gray, Gray & Nathanson, P.C., with offices in both Montgomery and Tuskegee. He is a pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement, a native of Montgomery, Alabama, and resides in Tuskegee with his lovely wife Carol. Mr. Gray’s life mission has been to destroy racial segregation wherever he finds it, and that is what he continues to do. He has practiced law since 1954, specializing in civil rights litigation, and continues to practice today at the age of 93.
He has been a cooperating attorney with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Legal Defense Fund Inc. since 1956. He represented many civil rights icons and organizations, including the victims of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin, Congressman John Lewis, the Freedom
Riders and Walkers, Selma to Montgomery Marchers, NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and others.
Attorney Gray is the recipient of many honorary degrees and awards. On July 7, 2022, President Joe Biden awarded Mr. Gray the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest award a civilian can receive. In 2023, he received the American Bar Association’s Medal, which is its highest award given and was also awarded the Legal Defense Fund’s Thurgood Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as president of the National Bar Association and Alabama Bar Association and is the current president of the Tuskegee Human & Civil Rights Multicultural Center.
During his 69-year legal career Attorney Gray filed suits to end discrimination in public transportation, voting rights, rights of members in non-profit organizations, right to public education without discrimination from kindergarten to graduate schools, right of students to obtain an education and not be expelled without a hearing, equal access to farm subsidies, health care, the right to serve on civil juries and many others.
“It is an honor and a privilege to have such an iconic defender of civil rights share his experiences, noting how far we have come and the work that lies before us. CPJI is dedicated to bringing awareness and unity to our community through a multitude of initiatives, and we are grateful to Mr. Gray for his support of our endeavors.”
—Trent Ogilvie, CPJI Co-founder
Gray and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., break into laughterat a joke told by a speaker at a political rally in Tuskegee, Ala.King once called Gray the "chief counsel" of the civil rights movement.
Gray and his colleagues during the Tuskegee syphilis Study.
Gray, right, helped defend Rosa Parks, left, against charges ofdisorderly conduct after she was arrested in Montgomery, Ala.,
