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. At the age of 94 he continues to practice law, specializing in civil rights litigation. He has been a cooperating attorney with the NAACP and Legal Defense Fund Inc. since 1956. He represented many civil rights icons and organizations including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ms. Rosa Parks, Ms. Claudette Colvin, Congressman John Lewis, the Freedom Riders, Selma to Montgomery Marchers, NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and others. In his first ten years as a lawyer Mr. Gray played a significant role in four landmark Supreme Court Cases and for over seven decades adroitly handled numerous civil rights cases, including the well-known Tuskegee Syphilis study. So many of his cases led to foundational rulings providing strong protection to all citizens. And many of his cases appear as relevant today as when argued before the court. Gomillion v. Lightfoot, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, and the right to public education without discrimination from kindergarten to graduate school, right of students to obtain an education and not be expelled without a hearing, all come to mind. For these and other significant legal victories Mr. Gray has been celebrated in multiple ways. In January, 2025 his portrait entered the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian. He has received honorary doctorates from numerous universities. 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. In 2022 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award a civilian in this country can receive. A little over a year ago Mr. Gray commissioned an ad hoc “Futures Committee,” made up of local and national experts, to plan for a new Civil Rights Institute that would have a positive and sustaining impact and grow out of his career work. As a result of their efforts, the Fred Gray Institute for Human and Civil Rights has been created to build on the foundational principles of Gray’s legal work and activism in medical racism, voting rights, gerrymandering, and equal access to high quality education. The Institute educates, convenes, collaborates toward practical outcomes, and helps sustain the robust Tuskegee Human & Civil Rights Multicultural Center which serves as a memorial to the participants in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and educates the public on the contributions made in the fields of human and civil rights by various ethnic groups. Mr. Gray’s life mission has been to destroy racial segregation wherever he finds it, and that is what he continues to do.