TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Jun 29, 2022

Civil rights attorney Fred Gray will receive the nation’s highest honor — the Presidential Medal of Freedom — on July 7, the National Bar Association announced today. The Alabama native became a global icon for Black American jurists, lawyers and law students during his long career, driving some of the country's most significant court decisions impacting the lives of Black Americans and other underserved communities. His accomplishments include representing Rosa Parks, and serving as the attorney for Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., legal counsel for the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study victims, and president of the Alabama State Bar and National Bar Association. In 2006, Gray spoke at the Tennessee Bar Association’s Diversity Summit. In 2016, Lipscomb University renamed its Institute for Law, Justice & Society for Gray. Randall Spivey, academic director for the institute, wrote about Gray’s legacy in the October 2016 issue of the Tennessee Bar Journal.