Join the Center for American Progress for a conversation between former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) and Fred Gray, a renowned civil rights attorney who represented Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and the victims of the Tuskegee syphilis study.
The Center for American Progress is dedicated to continuing the fight to ensure the rights of all Americans are protected and upheld. This prerecorded discussion at the Tuskegee Human and Civil Rights Multicultural Center is the first in a two-part series that discusses the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, the continued struggle against voter suppression today, the importance of federal action to protect the right to vote, and the historic and continued use of the Senate filibuster to block critical civil rights legislation.
During the 1950s and 1960s, one of the primary ways Black and brown Americans gained advances in civil rights was through the courts. Attorney Gray contributed monumentally to these advances by providing legal representation to Rosa Parks during the Montgomery bus boycott. Sen. Jones and attorney Gray discuss in detail Gray’s legal work throughout the Civil Rights Movement and the obstacles—including the Supreme Court and Congress—standing in the way of realizing all Americans’ civil and voting rights today.