HONORED

Fred Gray appreciates plan to rename West Jeff Davis Avenue

Brad Harper | Montgomery Advertiser | USA TODAY NETWORK

Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed has unveiled a plan to rename West Jeff Davis Avenue to Fred D. Gray Avenue in honor of the legendary civil rights attorney who grew up there.

Gray was Rosa Parks’ attorney and the legal adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. He won court victories against segregation and inequality throughout the Civil Rights Era, often while facing personal and professional retaliation.

“I know that without these legal wins and without the courage of attorney Gray … that I would not be mayor today,” said Reed, who became Montgomery’s first Black mayor when he was elected last year.

Gray said Wednesday that he’s honored by the proposal.

“I hope what I have done has helped to change things,” he said. “It all started with instruction that received when I lived on West Jeff Davis.”

Renaming the street would require the approval of the property owners, the planning commission and the Montgomery City Council. But Reed said that beyond the name on the sign, it would signal a commitment to continue pursuing equality for all here.

“I believe this is the least that we can do,” Reed said. “As attorney Gray reminded me, he still practices law every day and is still looking for change to implement through the legal system.”

As a young attorney in Montgomery in 1955, he represented both Claudette Colvin and later Rosa Parks when each was arrested for refusing to give up a seat on city buses. The latter arrest touched off the Montgomery Bus Boycott and led Gray to challenge the city’s segregation laws through a federal suit that became known as Browder v. Gayle.

After he filed the suit, the draft board reclassified him as 1-A and required him to report for military service until the director of the Selective Service System intervened. He was arrested that same year and charged with filing needless litigation, but the indictment was thrown out.

The case ultimately led to the desegregation of city buses and rippled through a larger fight against segregation in America and around the world. Gray would go on to play a key role in other landmark rights cases, including successfully defending a group of Freedom Riders and winning the admittance of Black students to the University of Alabama and Auburn University.

After Selma-to-Montgomery marchers were beaten on Bloody Sunday in 1965, he helped secure a federal injunction to allow the march, a major milestone toward the Voting Rights Act.

Gray said when he was a teenager “there were two things Black boys on the west side of Montgomery could think about being, and that was preachers and teachers. I decided to be both.” But while working toward becoming a teacher, he saw what he described as “problems with the buses” and decided to become a lawyer instead. “They told me lawyers help to solve problems,” Gray said.

Reed made the announcement as the city celebrates the 65th anniversary of the bus boycott, a time that he said should be celebrated by every American.

“Everyday people participated and led and changed the nation. It’s something that should remind all of us that we can do that in our own space, in our own time, no matter what that challenge may be,” Reed said.