One-On-One With Civil Rights Attorney, Dr. Fred Gray
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A key figure in the Civil Rights movement speaks to us one-on-one about the role he played as a lawyer. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks are just two of the many people he represented. Dr. Fred Gray says Alabama, the nation, has made huge strides towards ending racial segregation. But he says when he represented Dr. King, Parks, even walked the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday — he never realized the magnitude his impact would make across the nation today. During the Civil Rights movement, some may say Dr. Fred Gray was one of the most sought after attorneys. In fact, one of his high profile clients include Rosa Parks, a client who called him the same day she refused to give up her seat to a white man. “It was our responsibility as mine, a lawyer, [and] as other lawyers’ responsibilities was to solve those problems you weren’t thinking about starting a movement you were thinking about solving problems. And in solving problems and with a lot of help along the way we were able to start a movement,” Said Dr. Gray. Gray’s clients not only include Rosa Parks, Dr. King, and Hosea Williams. He argued before the United States Supreme Court in several landmark civil rights cases. He also and helped file lawsuits that led to the desegregation of all public institutions of higher learning and the integration of elementary and secondary schools, a fight that took courage and commitment from everyone involved. “We got a lot of people registered to vote we have a lot of minority people who are now actively a part of the legislative judicial and administrative progress so I think we’ve made some progress,” Said Dr. Gray. We asked Gray if he would be attending the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March. He says he’ll do whatever people ask him to do. But since he crossed the bridge the day of Bloody Sunday in 1965, he doesn’t feel the need to re-live it again. Dr. Gray was in Montgomery for Faulkner University’s Civil Rights Symposium. He spoke to students there about the role that law and lawyers played in the Civil Rights Movement.
