Legendary lawyer and Case Western Reserve University School of Law alumni gives Battisti Lecture.

Fred D. Gray ’54, one of the nation’s leading civil rights lawyers, delivered this year’s Battisti memorial lecture. He explained the background to some of the landmark civil rights cases in which he participated and discussed the civil rights challenges that our nation still faces. Mr. Gray represented Rosa Parks after her arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. That incident sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and propelled into international prominence a young minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., another of Mr. Gray’s clients. He also represented the victims of the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment and played a significant role in several landmark Supreme Court cases. Among them are New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which afforded strong First Amendment protection to critics of public officials; Gomillion v. Lightfoot, the Tuskegee gerrymandering case that paved the way for a series of landmark reapportionment decisions; and NAACP v. Alabama, an important ruling about freedom of association.

Mr. Gray has been involved in almost every significant civil rights case in Alabama for more than half a century and is still practicing full-time. He also was one of the first two African Americans elected to the Alabama legislature after the end of Reconstruction and was the first black president of the Alabama State Bar Association.

Mr. Gray has received the Centennial Medal, the highest honor that the law school can bestow, and has served as a trustee of Case Western Reserve University, which also has conferred an honorary degree on him. He has received numerous other honors, including the Thurgood Marshall Award from the American Bar Association.

The Battisti lectures honor the late Frank J. Battisti, who was chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. The lecture series was established with the support of Judge Battisti’s clerks, many of whom are graduates of our law school.

Legendary lawyer and Case Western Reserve University School of Law alumni gives Battisti Lecture.

Fred D. Gray ’54, one of the nation’s leading civil rights lawyers, delivered this year’s Battisti memorial lecture. He explained the background to some of the landmark civil rights cases in which he participated and discussed the civil rights challenges that our nation still faces. Mr. Gray represented Rosa Parks after her arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. That incident sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and propelled into international prominence a young minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., another of Mr. Gray’s clients. He also represented the victims of the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment and played a significant role in several landmark Supreme Court cases. Among them are New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which afforded strong First Amendment protection to critics of public officials; Gomillion v. Lightfoot, the Tuskegee gerrymandering case that paved the way for a series of landmark reapportionment decisions; and NAACP v. Alabama, an important ruling about freedom of association.

Mr. Gray has been involved in almost every significant civil rights case in Alabama for more than half a century and is still practicing full-time. He also was one of the first two African Americans elected to the Alabama legislature after the end of Reconstruction and was the first black president of the Alabama State Bar Association.

Mr. Gray has received the Centennial Medal, the highest honor that the law school can bestow, and has served as a trustee of Case Western Reserve University, which also has conferred an honorary degree on him. He has received numerous other honors, including the Thurgood Marshall Award from the American Bar Association.

The Battisti lectures honor the late Frank J. Battisti, who was chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. The lecture series was established with the support of Judge Battisti’s clerks, many of whom are graduates of our law school.

Legendary lawyer and Case Western Reserve University School of Law alumni gives Battisti Lecture.

Fred D. Gray ’54, one of the nation’s leading civil rights lawyers, delivered this year’s Battisti memorial lecture. He explained the background to some of the landmark civil rights cases in which he participated and discussed the civil rights challenges that our nation still faces. Mr. Gray represented Rosa Parks after her arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. That incident sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and propelled into international prominence a young minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., another of Mr. Gray’s clients. He also represented the victims of the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment and played a significant role in several landmark Supreme Court cases. Among them are New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which afforded strong First Amendment protection to critics of public officials; Gomillion v. Lightfoot, the Tuskegee gerrymandering case that paved the way for a series of landmark reapportionment decisions; and NAACP v. Alabama, an important ruling about freedom of association.

Mr. Gray has been involved in almost every significant civil rights case in Alabama for more than half a century and is still practicing full-time. He also was one of the first two African Americans elected to the Alabama legislature after the end of Reconstruction and was the first black president of the Alabama State Bar Association.

Mr. Gray has received the Centennial Medal, the highest honor that the law school can bestow, and has served as a trustee of Case Western Reserve University, which also has conferred an honorary degree on him. He has received numerous other honors, including the Thurgood Marshall Award from the American Bar Association.

The Battisti lectures honor the late Frank J. Battisti, who was chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. The lecture series was established with the support of Judge Battisti’s clerks, many of whom are graduates of our law school.