NBL HOF Flipbook - Flipbook - Page 9
In Pollard v. United States of America (1974), which preserved and protected the rights of persons involved in the
infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Mr. Gray encouraged the President of the United States to make an official apology
to the participants, who also requested a memorial in their honor. The apology was made at the White House in May
1997.
One of the first African Americans to serve in the Alabama Legislature since Reconstruction, Mr. Gray served from
1970-1974. He is the managing shareholder in the law firm of Gray, Langford, Sapp, McGowan, Gray, Gray &
Nathanson P.C., with offices in Montgomery and Tuskegee, Alabama.
Mr. Gray has received numerous awards, honors, honorary Doctor of Laws degrees, and honorary Degrees of Humane
Letters. His contributions also have been noted by historic markers erected in front of the Supreme Court of Alabama
(2015) and in Tuskegee, Alabama (2016). He has been appointed to the Charles Hamilton Houston Chair in Law at The
North Carolina Central University School of Law (December 2000); honored by Lipscomb University by the naming of
the Fred D. Gray Institute for Law, Justice & Society in recognition of his commitment to civil rights and against
racism; and was the moving force in the establishment of the Tuskegee Human and Civil Rights Multicultural Center,
which serves as a memorial to the Study participants, educates the public on contributions in the field of human and civil
rights by Native Americans and Americans of African and European descent, and strives to educate on the role
Tuskegee-Macon County played in the Civil Rights Movement.
On July 7, 2022, President Joseph Biden awarded Mr. Gray with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, this country’s
highest award for a civilian. Mr. Gray’s life mission has been to “stamp out discrimination,” and that is what he
continues to do.
