HJR105 Summary

• Commends former Alabama State Representative Fred D. Gray, a pioneer civil rights attorney, for his professional achievements and 70-year legal career.

• Recognizes Gray's representation of civil rights icons including Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Congressman John Lewis, and the Freedom Riders, resulting in landmark Supreme Court rulings against bus segregation.

• Acknowledges Gray's work with major civil rights organizations including the NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and Congress of Racial Equality, and his representation of Tuskegee Syphilis Study victims.

• Notes Gray's major awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joseph Biden, the American Bar Association's Medal, the Legal Defense Fund's Thurgood Marshall Award, and permanent portrait installation in the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery.

• References the Fred D. Gray Institute for Human and Civil Rights inaugural National Symposium scheduled for March 14-15 in Montgomery, Alabama to discuss ongoing civil rights issues.