I am an American
We are One Nation
Each week, this series will introduce you to an exceptional American who unites, rather than divides, our communities. In this installment, read about Fred Gray, the civil rights attorney from Montgomery, Alabama, who helped desegregate the South.
Each week, this series will introduce you to an exceptional American who unites, rather than divides, our communities. To read more about the American profiled here and more average Americans doing exceptional things, visit onenation.usatoday.com.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - As a young civil rights attorney in the 1950s 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 forbade 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. Read a Q&A with Fred Gray discussing what he thinks it means to be an American. Story on Page 7E Location: Montgomery, Ala. Age: 86 Profession: Lawyer Mission: Using the legal system to break down racial barriers and to fight discrimination.