In honor of National Black History Month, The Elder Law Center of Kirson & Fuller is proud to feature African Americans that have impacted the nation through jurisprudence. 

As colleague and attorney for Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Gray was extremely active in the civil rights movement. Gray was born in 1930 and raised in a segregated black division of Montgomery, Alabama. He earned his undergraduate degree from Alabama State College while working as the district manager of the Alabama Journal. After earning his Juris Doctor degree (JD) from Case Western Reserve University, he opened his own law firm in Montgomery.

Gray represented prominent activist Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks when they received charges of disorderly conduct for refusing to give up their bus seats to white passengers. He was instrumental to the Montgomery bus boycott, serving as an attorney in the civil suit Browder v. Gayle that eventually integrated the city’s buses. In 1970, Gray became one of the first two African-American legislators to be elected in Alabama since the Reconstruction era.

Gray continues to practice law as a senior partner at Gray, Langford, Sapp, McGowan, Gray & Nathanson in Alabama.

Source: https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/14-groundbreaking-black-lawyers-gallery