Voting Station

Fred Gray

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Attorney

The Resume

    (December 14, 1930- )
    Born in Montgomery, Alabama
    Middle name is David
    Member of the Alabama House of Representatives (1971–2015)
    Litigated the court cases ‘Browder v. Gayle’ (1956), ‘Dixon v. Alabama’ (1961), ‘Gomillion v. Lightfoot’ (1962), and ‘Williams v. Wallace’ (1963)
    Autobiography is 'Bus Ride to Justice'

Why he might be annoying:

    He brought the ‘Browder v. Gayle’ case to the Supreme Court, but one of the original plaintiffs, Jeanetta Reese, withdrew and attempted to get him disbarred for improper representation.
    He asked President Carter to withdraw his nomination to be a Middle District judge and Myron Herbert Thompson was nominated in his stead (September 17, 1980).
    Internet searches for his name often redirect results to the 2015 Baltimore police killing of Freddie Grey (even though the surnames are spelled differently).

Why he might not be annoying:

    He defended Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks in his earliest court cases.
    As a local religious leader, he helped merge white and black congregations in Tuskegee, Alabama, where he had moved.
    He was one of the first Black members of the Alabama Legislature after Reconstruction.
    He successfully defended Martin Luther King from charges of tax evasion in 1960, winning an acquittal from an all-white jury.
    He won a legal victory enabling civil rights activists to march from Selma to Montgomery as a means of petitioning the government, getting the judge to overturn Governor George Wallace's prohibition of it citing public safety concerns.
    He was portrayed by Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Shawn Michael Howard on film.

Credit: BoyWithTheGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2023, as of last week, Out of 90 Votes: 41.11% Annoying