Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Gray attended the Loveless School, where his aunt taught, until the seventh grade. He attended the Nashville Christian Institute (NCI), a boarding school operated by the Churches of Christ, … See more

Browder v. Gayle was a court case heard before a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on … See more

Gray married the former Bernice Hill, his secretary, in 1955, and they had four children. He published his autobiography in 1995, Bus Ride to Justice: The Life and Works of Fred Gray. … See more

Gray is portrayed by Cuba Gooding, Jr. in the 2014 film Selma, which dramatizes the Selma to Montgomery marches and Gray's argument before Judge Frank Johnson that the march should be allowed to go forward.
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In 1957, Gray fulfilled his mother's dream by becoming a preacher in Churches of Christ. In 1974, he helped merge white and black congregations in Tuskegee, Alabama, where he had moved. Gray also served on the board of trustees for Southwestern Christian College See more

Gray also represented plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit about the controversial federal Tuskegee Syphilis Study (1932-1972). During the Great Depression, the study was changed to review untreated syphilis in rural African-American male … See more

In 1980, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference awarded Gray its Drum Major Award. In 1996, the American Bar Association awarded Gray its Spirit of Excellence Award (having awarded him its Equal Justice Award in 1977). The National Bar … See more