A Word on Words; 4215; Fred Gray

televisions used to be in the way of celebrating all things literature and ideas for more than three decades that this is a word of foreign workers with jobs to be done on guns in the local once again or own words not patented a welcome fred right you will montgomery alabama i believe the state to finish an education blacks weren't allowed to attend law school and now baumann of that is his lofty goal as a young lawyer with to dismantle everything segregated he could fall when his friend rosa parks arrested nine to decide for violating the segregated city ordinance join robinson and fred then recommended martin luther king jr as a spokesman for the calls and the twenty four year old fred gray again the attorney subsequently began the moon and lawyer legal victory in the federal courts and the montgomery bus boycott drew on a one day later did talk about asthma bus riders justice his experiences playing a pivotal role also writes moon

glad to have you hear my old friend good to say you know you're looking good and so you i am lovable i have relatives like reliving our living history and enchanted and that and literally the stories come alive and you know it and there is so many young people out there only on a silent cameras you don't remember who don't understand who would even understand the time when you because of the goalie is again could not attend law school and said well obama you came up on the lead so so i said earlier that you decided you ain't gonna tear down every vestige of segregation where that come from friends

well it became really an apology indices of it may overturn the initial i went to church has been here in the forties and when i finished i was going there was a boarding school i was going back to alabama and be what black young man could be there with two way possessions teaching and preaching in our lobby both ireland and it has ruined their show travel around with earl pioneer preacher marshall able to learn how to preach finish win back home to alabama to go to alabama state and learn how to be a teacher and build on the west side of town alabama state the historical black college then alabama state college for negroes was on the he sat at the use of public transportation system are real as man that may allow people mistreat it not only that i realize that

everything in montgomery at that time was segregated based on race and if a person of color that a cause of action and as a white person regardless of the merits i was very little likelihood of getting justice so i made up my mind while i was up a teenager that in addition to people need to ultimately be say they need to be able to enjoy some of them constitutional rights and made a secret commitment to finish alabama state go to somebody is all swoon it when applied to the university of alabama we'll finish law school come back to alabama passed a bar exam and destroy everything segregated lack of fan that's the history but looking back on it did it you know in our first phase was not rosa parks is was not but the kings days but a fifteen year old girl

nicola cotton who did what business parks did but she did on mars to second nineteen fifties that nine months before you say in the book and this is this is a revelation i had always thought and the literature basically fifth says that rosa parks happily then there that day and she headed of the end rizzo was accidental if you read a number of the council will have the fruit the money as you've been talking about over a long time and the coleman case influence or then those correct it really influenced oil and sea floor that and we did they influenced each other god and had been in some amazing spot classes as he's director of the montgomery branch of the naacp

has brought also had been a secretary among them are branch she was very interested in seoul writes her husband was interested in seoul arts so and in the first edition a bus ride to justice i didn't write as i have done and the revised edition because i didn't feel free then to talk about are all of those days as i did later on and neither biggest parks but we had an understanding because i had sat how we said in that office full of fat days a week almost every every weekday and talked about conditions and long rumored so it's not as jews in the book is not preplanned a minute without a specific date was visiting instance there was not some underground secret that she was gonna do no one that brought you all had talked about

demeanor reaction and response what to say what not to say so in a sense the scenario was set but not preplanned that's correct because we really couldn't completely prepared it right because no more want you know nominate people are beyond the bus that you don't know well in about as gumby requested to stand up and not stand up but what we did know what mrs potts understood was long she would be an ideal person you have the opportunity presented itself and i had to be sure that ms sobel signs want i had to be counsel that people would get made is bought say how was during a mitigation and so when she got arrested i was in imminent danger or mother am i didn't want

her to have to stay in jail because i didn't know what would happen to an a logical person to get out of here would be de dixon who was the who on property pulling point but early in the lazy be in montgomery is i think that as we read that that was the the nixon but the problem here is at nixon was in town three days out of town three days so if she were to get arrested when he's out a tale and i'm not available that was going to happen so we had to be careful and plan things that give the opportunity presented itself i had the bees you add nixon also nails was there and i knew only a syllable first that ed nixon was intel and i was out of dough and if anything happen to ms products we knew what was going to happen and it happened and i have disclosed in detail the

background about that correcting it because what is a spotter was the key person and she wanted to take a place in history and she did not baghdad and the whole thing to undo the last plant in the sense that we will appear but an evangelical voters and has set in motion the beginning of the civil rights movement wendy just take you for a moment away from that case and as you about the millions i think i read the book years ago the malian forces life of this out with the title but i hadn't thought of a deal in years till you re entered israel and then share the story of a million briefly with our listen and well the man vs light for the lawsuit that the reason that was a result of what we found and began to get a few voters in the city of tuskegee

and is the county seat of macon where does the universe doing home of the tuskegee institute located and booker washington was the president enjoys watching videos were but what happens a lot they change they do is tuscany was a square a mile and a half from the courthouse they changed it to twenty eight sites they will go out to include white people come in to exclude blacks gerrymandering german or injured as riding on the called rovers is grain horses he set that the secular stay out of justice frankfurt as a political thing it's a wave and then when i don't just lays out a vote and is fascinated by the map that you had made that really showed

how how the valley of college your manager golden end on it i guess find further the cubs and arrested in this at some point in the end they end they a close friend court and said do you mean to tell me that dusty again and outside the city needs to do is outside the city that's the corps did he asked and my answer to her most of justice to ski was in the city limits but akp number one seven tour ends up taking it out of the city limits and his response tuskegee institute is i'm sad the city limits of the city of jazz gig i said yes sir and iran is a hill to when they gaze not all innocent justice frankfurter vote but unanimous go through so i concluded early on and nobody thought

i could win this case i had the wrong robert car the lawyer with david marsh all the country to get him to help me with it but i thought the best way to illustrate it was to help the to the city limits before nafta superimposed in all one that i was a william william p major league at the map company to do it and i had enough sense to get the small copy out that attack has as a cop it's like a play because i know about it is to use it in jay's johnson score because the business did the court of appeals affirmed it and it went up to the supreme court and i was a tomboy and the take my briefcase and my main you know when i went to the supreme court is going to have a dry seat saver a map look like this and before i could start talking to the court i had made a regular with the cleric in the marshall to put it up and ms to justice frankfurter want to know what it was and

i was already afraid it and he was the justice that we were really afraid of a little thing he created a dead there was a i think that and i was really the thing but there's something about that and about her but about mr rubin million longo fold nineteen fifty seven other us about women act was paris not to go million in and we indeed mitchell an old person's connected with tuskegee institute and the va hospital in tuscany in the early forties was filing lawsuits for the right to vote people talk about montgomery and selma and birmingham but the real moment so for the right to vote is concerned started in tuskegee alabama and we know air out their colonized news im possessed for human and so reiss more dakota summer which owns the role that got ago marion played even before the million versus like you know and i

think about so many cases in which you played a part in the us both navy bus boycott in montgomery really sort of love for the first time and reduced to monitor the king not only to the country club in a real sense megan largely because the row you enjoy and robinson played in singing and now made him the leader in montgomery he was he was a preacher he was our preacher but he was not the leader of the movement a lot at the time roessler the letter was arrested what is it that a king came to mind them or not for the proposal starring as the worst moment

you as a young baptist preacher just out will seminary just outside of syria's likely to reduce his first guest rich and i think the farthest thing from his man so far as i know all the record shows that he was not thinking about so it's but he had the ability the problem of the buses in montgomery had been a problem long before the king came and the people knew about it and i don't think we could've gotten them the african americans among permit to govern as man if they owe more than the buses at that time because it was a real problem and what they needed was somebody to come forth with a plan so on the one hand and the buses as the issue ends suddenly these young preacher emerges eloquent passionate powerful je ne just for a moment that you're just joining us i'm talking with fred grandmother's books but for

other doctors somewhat french but let's let's just think for a moment and might emerge is it he was joy and robinson furniture and the two of you conspired really to make sure he was the person who emerged as the spokesperson for boulez but he couldn't do about itself we needed they all the two existing leaders among them are e d nixon was missed the civil rights and then you're a roof was lewis who will all are concerned about registration and i'm getting people elected in holland office those with the two leaders and they had to be given key role that if we had them at the one unveiled to be the spokesman we were afraid we would lose a lot of farmers so we say listen let martin as the middle and frankie positions and i suggested to do an awesome i know ed nixon as one of his own church

let's make him the treasure of the causes of pullman couple and a philip randolph in new york is president abed you liane and they'll be able to raise money for the movement will that work that we're going to send the message as an asset roof was lawyers wife jewel is called on the largest film called in town beard and steel the law does feel home among the remaining they have carts so make you and chairman of the transportation committee so we'll be able to get service like they look nadia riding buses but it didn't rise of the oligarchs and of course you will have a few legal problems there and a young lawyer you just how those who would be the logical person to serve as a lawyer for the moment when did sims wood paneled an epithet that the official

meeting dr king was selected as the spokesman and he was not at the meeting at the dam was selected about a move was lewis was made chairman of the transportation committee and liston it was amazing that first world and a young lawyer just our own laws will buy year was made the lawyer for the movement and win back the game was introduced to the people after this part had been convicted on december force everybody knew that that decision was right and that he was the man for the movement and it was introduced and therefore not all that among the armor in the nation but to the world so we were able out of that movement not on it to generate people who would follow but an international leader but an internationally wasn't it in all of one of the great

plays for me and green the book that suddenly i come up on a photo album and knowing that inside pictures that you might just described drop out in the middle of it and then as the note robert gratz it was a young white preacher at the old black lutheran church on the right and he's back in montgomery know and that goes for a very old and that freddie gray on the left that young lawyer an elephant another that a messiah figure this is a very was pitching is it all the dancing and all arab idol corona and bottom of the game but they don't know that jesus was at first

some were indicted for covering this next picture looked that's a big family and i think today was made enough for its losses among them read one third day monroe sharif during the montgomery bus boycott the bridge was probably taken on the same day that mrs potts was arrested another arrested but was tried on to some of the first nineteen fifty five next picture is rosa yes that's my friend and we had planned it one time to tell the rest of the story because a new novella boats that city although what happened i did not kill him on first edition and when i found out that i went to see in detroit and i knew the end of the real thin man was not a source that she was going to be able to tell the rest of the story so i decided i was going to have to do it and i did it in the new edition well it is exceptionally well colin and it sets the record straight and there's the less this is a picture

the person next to nicholas on the first one is adam clayton powell who was the ad that turned all the like and the congress at nixon is mexico among all a pause a minute next unveil a person is blair who was considered to be the black mayor of tuskegee and at nixon relative there was ever one person was followed the civil rights movement that's who did it and it goes adam clayton powell came to montgomery about the whole year before this is brought big which he did so he played an important role also in helping to bow the speech that he made to have gotten us a committed to the majors mr newell anything back same city that once martin king is the figurehead of the attacks on him

and one says lawyers identified and the lawyer the moon was identified the attacks on him or going inevitably come from a white racist power structure and i'd like to ask you to talk a little bit about the effort to get him by charging him with a violating state taxes income taxes i never quite understood why are the state of alabama decide it after like the king had loved mungo under the bus boycott is oh whoa is on the southern christian leadership conference he's now living in atlanta is now speaking out i guess the vietnam wall is now and asian a leader and why this either in nineteen sixty two and it helpful although jett live perjury in connection with filing his tax return in nineteen fifty

and fifty six i really don't understand unless it was for the purpose of trying to embarrass you know particularly in connection with the vietnam war was then was a very unpopular war but and they had nobody embedded in a warm fort and passe and love boat and i think the white house structure and longer number one alabama failed to rule us that's what happened in that case and it was right in the middle of the city is right in the middle of all of these dunes coming down in the freedom rides and we tried that case before an all white jury and i'd raise every racially should i can think about and guess what happened but i know they return of vertical not guilty all martin

luther king jr and most people don't even think about them is hardly giving about today waded into radio i was shocked that we wanted our thought was not to do like every all the rest of the video on appeal but we were able to win it and i think that was a very important is to about the kid because you've had been proven that god he's talking about although for the lawyers beyond wrong and all his elevation that the same dance cd on his taxes it would have been devastating so i think that probably it is the most important case personally off about a change is going to try to get you in a number of ways to try to get to one for signing rose is appeal beyond on sale i mean i failed in every effort to punish to the

call you a lawyer a full moon on how to have to react to those punitive action well before the first landed and hit them i get a lot of them the busses asian i responded to it and before i would respond i were usually go and get a mortgage because our laws back could not defend myself and i realize what they were trying to do and in the final analysis though and i have to be early alabama bar association credit years later they decided the power structure of the bar that it would be advantages for for agreeing to being probed and alabama state bar and they didn't come up with the idea was a female white lawyer and birmingham came up with that audio and ayatollah she was crazy sheer madness to

represent a law firm in defending some person's a lot of the state and so from eight to put myself out for when the lawyers act a vote on may considering what they did when president carter nominated may fall federal judgeship i will do it which is a world i think issue and she went to were introduced into people and they when they really started talking with me about her talk to the piles of beer the bar and serve now if you or maybe it's like i cannot do the job i'll do it but there's only one way out do it i'll have to do it all in one contested basis because a white laureate who was to raise the flag about the laws as i have vowed to the segregated alabama they can win but it worked out plan we were able to win the election uncontested that and was able to do so things want i didn't go away from what broadly they're

really had one person who has served on the board of bar commissioners sauce that we need to diversify the ball and we ended up getting our legislation address that added additional shot so that minorities could serve on the bar and there is a plan in place in alabama if they were old valerie that will really bring about on the verge of a ball i was also able to get the state bar association to have an alabama lawyers call a sign something i had done when i was president of all black bar association the national bar association you know it just remind me ran out of time but it also reminded me that there is something he said that was a low anthem we shall overcome you're welcome thank you for my favorite i mean it's so great to have you here during combat and our

museum and just economic data do it thank you i wanna thank all of you for watching and johnson and all for a word on words for a word on words reading