What Have You Done Lately Asks Rosa Parks’ Attorney

Black Lives Matter is a household name and the heir apparent of the mission of the Civil Rights Movement. Founders and members moved onto the national stage in the wake of a community’s grief over the killings of Black men at the hands of White men assigned with protecting. From the neighborhood watchman who killed 17 year-old Trayvon Martin to the policemen charged with taking the lives of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Dontre Hamilton, and others, the Black Lives Matter demand for justice presents the country with a formidable reminder that America is not known for its equitable treatment of Black Americans.

Attorney Fred Gray, who represented Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks during the Montgomery Bus boycott, believes there is still a pressing need for leadership and involvement in the fight against racism.

Gray says, “The question of racism in this country is so deeply ingrained it is going to take the federal government, the state, the county governments, the city and local governments, school boards and institutions of higher learning. It’s going to take business, and it’s going to take religious institutions, and it’s going to take individuals. Individuals are going to have to decide that I have a role to play. We want the problem solved but we want somebody else to solve it and we want to reap the benefits of it.”

Gray remembers the unwavering commitment he and his colleagues made to their community and improving the lives of its members. “The purpose of all of that wasn’t just to change the laws for the sake of it. But, it was so that we all could truly be equal.”

Like so many others, he does not believe the job is finished. His question now is: what are you doing to move the discussion in a progressive direction.

“I recognized that there was a problem in Montgomery, and the only reason I became a lawyer was because of the problems which existed in Montgomery, and I decided I didn’t like what I saw, thought the problems could be corrected, and I decided I would go to law school and become a lawyer and help to solve some of those problems.”
Gray, who is 86 years old, graduated from Alabama State. He is reluctant to offer specific advice to today’s generation of leaders.

“My advice for young people, particularly young people who whether they realize it or not, are reaping the benefits of what their parents and grandparents did…If you don’t realize we still have a problem, and you think we have arrived because we have a President in the White House who is now of color…they you are sadly mistaken. And, I don’t think it’s the responsibility of my generation to give the younger generation a blueprint on how to go about doing it. They should see the problem and with all the education and the technology, you should be able to take it from where we have brought it, and take it forward.”

It is both a clarion call to action and a nod to the efforts of organizations like Black Lives Matter from an architect of one of the Civil Rights Movement’s most historic successes.