BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN FRED DAVIS GRAY A CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY AND ACTIVIST : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

                       BLACK           SOCIAL              HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                   Fred David Gray  born December 14, 1930  is a civil rights attorney and activist who practices law in Alabama. He served as the President of the National Bar Association in 1985 and the first African-American President of the Alabama State Bar. He was educated at Nashville Christian Institute (diploma), Alabama State University (baccalaureate degree), and Case Western Reserve University School of Law (juris doctor).

Efforts in civil rights

Gray was a lawyer in Alabama during the civil rights movement. He came to prominence working with Martin Luther King, Jr., E.D. Nixon, Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Improvement Association during the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 (Browder v. Gayle). Other notable cases include: Gomillion v. Lightfoot (redistricting of Tuskegee, ultimately affording political power to blacks in that city), Williams v. Wallace (protected Selma to Montgomery marchers), and Lee v. Macon (desegregation of all state public schools). He also represented plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (Pollard v. U.S.).
Gray has long been involved in efforts to resolve the controversial federal Tuskegee experiments involving untreated syphilis in African-American male subjects.
A revised edition of Gray's autobiography, Bus Ride to Justice, was scheduled for publication in 2012, to succeed the first edition published in 1994.
In 2006, the NAACP honored Gray by awarding him the William Robert Ming Advocacy Award for the spirit of financial and personal sacrifice displayed in his legal work.

Judicial nomination

On January 10, 1980, President Carter nominated Gray to be a judge on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, to fill a vacancy created by Judge Frank Minis Johnson's elevation to what then was the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Carter later withdrew Gray's nomination on September 17, 1980, in conjunction with the president instead nominating Myron Herbert Thompson to that seat.

Personal life

Gray is a member of Omega Psi Phi and Sigma Pi Phi. Gray's religious affiliation is the Churches of Christ. In 2012 Lipscomb University, affiliated with the Churches of Christ, bestowed on Gray a doctorate of humane letters honoris causa.