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• Fred Gray speaks at Auburn Constitution Day 2025

Famed Civil Rights attorney Fred Gray passes torch to Auburn students on Constitution Day

More than 238 years ago, the Constitutional Convention held their final meeting and signed the Constitution. In 2004, the United States Congress passed a law requiring all schools that receive federal funds to host a Constitution Day educational event that celebrates and promotes understanding of the Constitution.

Fred David Gray, the keynote speaker of Auburn’s Constitution Day, embodies the constitutional objective to “establish justice.” An icon of the Civil Rights Movement, Gray served as attorney to Rosa Parks during the Montgomery Bus Boycott as well as representing Martin Luther King Jr.

The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments freed African Americans from slavery and granted them constitutional rights to citizenship and voting. Gray devoted his 71 years practicing law to ensure that these constitutional amendments were carried out justly.

“At an early age, I recognized that the ‘We’ in the preamble to the Constitution of the United States, did not refer to people who look like me,” Gray said. “I was admitted to the Alabama bar on Sept. 7, 1954, for the purpose of seeing that all persons who are American citizens have the rights that they are guaranteed under the Constitution. No more and no less.”

During his 70-year legal career, he's received countless honors, but among the most recent was the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His autobiography “Bus Ride to Justice: Change the System by the System,” tells the story of a man that used the law to change the law to benefit everybody in this country.

“I made a secret pledge while I was a student at Alabama State College,” Gray said. “I would become a lawyer in Alabama after passing the bar examination and destroy everything segregated I could find. And that's what I tried to do for the last 71 years.”

After watching the constant mistreatment of African Americans on the Montgomery city bus system, Gray advocated for their right to desegregation during the Montgomery Bus Boycott alongside Rosa Parks. Eight years later, Gray worked with Dr. King’s chief assistant to secure government protection for the march from Selma to Montgomery.

“I know now what I knew when I first began to practice civil rights law and that is no one can do the work alone,” Gray said.

Gray has been involved with Auburn University since Jan. 2, 1964, when Harold Franklin was admitted as the first African American student, as a result of Gray filing for his admission. That opened the door, and Auburn University has since honored him.

For every Auburn student who attended Constitution Day, walking past the library and seeing the historic marker about Auburn’s desegregation, they now have a memory of the attorney who filed and argued that case.

After 71 years of fighting for justice, Gray turns the task over to us. He challenges us to go home and fight to solve problems in our communities. Whether that be through peaceful protest or registering to vote, he encourages the next generation to help others to have a wonderful life in accordance with the Constitution.

“My mother always told us, ‘You can be anything you want to be, but you have to do three things. One, keep Christ first in your life. Two, get a good education. Three, stay out of trouble.’ I didn’t do a very good job at the last one.”

Watch the Auburn Constitution Day 2025 Lecture with Fred Gray.

Tags: Political Science Center for the Arts and Humanities