Arts & Issues

Fred Gray

Bus Ride to Justice-The Montgomery Bus Boycott

Monday, November 5, 7:30 p.m.                                          
Meridian Ballroom, Morris University Center 

Fred David Gray is a nationally recognized civil rights attorney who helped change history. After earning his law degree in 1954, the young attorney was thrust into the national spotlight in 1955 when he represented Rosa Parks after her arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery city bus. The incident sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, considered the beginning of the civil rights movement. Despite the danger in fighting segregation in the Deep South, Gray helped organize the boycott that brought a young, unknown minister, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to the attention of the world. Gray went on to serve as King’s first civil rights attorney. With a legal career that has spanned more than half a century, Gray has won multiple landmark civil rights cases. Hear the story of this important chapter in American history and Gray’s fight to destroy segregation.

Sponsored by: Madison County Regional Office of Education,                 SIUE Office of the Provost and SIUE Department of Political Science

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