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Bus Ride to Justice (Revised Edition): Changing the System by the System, the Life and Works of Fred Gray
First published in 1995, Bus Ride to Justice , the best-selling autobiography by acclaimed civil rights attorney Fred D. Gray, appears now in a newly revised edition that updates Gray’s remarkable career of “destroying everything segregated that I could find.”
Of particular interest will be the details Gray reveals for the first time about Rosa Parks’s 1955 arrest. Gray was the young lawyer for Parks and also Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Improvement Association, which organized the 382-day Montgomery Bus Boycott after Parks’s arrest. As the last survivor of that inner circle, Gray speaks about the strategic reasons Parks was presented as a demure, random victim of Jim Crow policies when in reality she was a committed, strong-willed activist who was willing to be arrested so there could be a test case to challenge segregation laws.
Gray’s remarkable career also includes landmark civil rights cases in voting rights, education, housing, employment, law enforcement, jury selection, and more. He is widely considered one of the most successful civil rights attorneys of the twentieth century and his cases are studied in law schools around the world. In addition he was an ordained Church of Christ minister and was one of the first blacks elected to the Alabama legislature in the modern era. Initially denied entrance to Alabama’s segregated law school, he eventually became the first black president of the Alabama bar association.
This volume also includes new photographs not found in the previous edition.
Of particular interest will be the details Gray reveals for the first time about Rosa Parks’s 1955 arrest. Gray was the young lawyer for Parks and also Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Improvement Association, which organized the 382-day Montgomery Bus Boycott after Parks’s arrest. As the last survivor of that inner circle, Gray speaks about the strategic reasons Parks was presented as a demure, random victim of Jim Crow policies when in reality she was a committed, strong-willed activist who was willing to be arrested so there could be a test case to challenge segregation laws.
Gray’s remarkable career also includes landmark civil rights cases in voting rights, education, housing, employment, law enforcement, jury selection, and more. He is widely considered one of the most successful civil rights attorneys of the twentieth century and his cases are studied in law schools around the world. In addition he was an ordained Church of Christ minister and was one of the first blacks elected to the Alabama legislature in the modern era. Initially denied entrance to Alabama’s segregated law school, he eventually became the first black president of the Alabama bar association.
This volume also includes new photographs not found in the previous edition.
448 pages, Paperback
Published September 15, 2023
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May 2, 2024
I need to preface this review by stating that I really admire Fred Gray and the work he did in the civil rights movement. I have become interested in Gray because of his connection to my denomination, the churches of Christ. But everyone should pay attention to Gray regardless of his religious affiliation. I feel like Gray should be more famous than he is.
A friend of mine picked up my copy of this book and had it signed by Gray at an event a couple of years ago. I am proud to have it in my library. I have been looking forward to making time to read it. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations.
My main complaint is not with the information contained in the book. Instead, my issue is with Gray's writing style. I say this as an attorney: in this book, Gray writes too much like an attorney. The book is a very factual, straightforward presentation of the events described. The problem is that it results in a very dry writing style that is not necessarily easy to read.
Having said that, there are many good things about the book. Gray was so highly involved in many events in the civil rights movement that he is a living encyclopedia. Because of the breadth of his work, there is a vast amount of material to cover. There is a lot to be learned about the civil rights movement from this book. For example, and perhaps I am exposing my ignorance, I had not heard of William Moore before reading this book. I learned a lot that I did not previously know from Gray.
However, the amount of experience Gray has is a double edged sword. Because he was involved in so much and has so much to tell, many events only get surface level treatment. For example, William Moore gets one paragraph. Bloody Sunday only gets a couple of pages. One would have to go to other sources to get a deeper understanding of may of the events Gray participated in.
The biggest let down of the book is the lack of insight into Gray's emotional response to the things he describes. This is not a memoir in the traditional sense.
Gray's motivation for his work is evident on nearly every page. If you don't learn anything else about Gray, you will know that it was his mission to destroy everything segregated he could find. Other than that, Gray doesn't reveal much about how he felt. The closest he comes to really revealing his emotions is the chapter where he discusses the withdrawal of his nomination to be a federal district judge. You can sense the anger. I want more of that. I want to know more about how Gray reacted to his achievements and setbacks. How did he feel after Bloody Sunday? Did he get discouraged? Did he ever consider giving up? Had Gray been more vulnerable and revealed more of his emotional side, this book would have been without equal.
Overall, this book is a solid resource on the civil rights movement and it is well worth reading. A reader approaching it for the first time should know that it may be a slog that is tedious to get through, at times.
A friend of mine picked up my copy of this book and had it signed by Gray at an event a couple of years ago. I am proud to have it in my library. I have been looking forward to making time to read it. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations.
My main complaint is not with the information contained in the book. Instead, my issue is with Gray's writing style. I say this as an attorney: in this book, Gray writes too much like an attorney. The book is a very factual, straightforward presentation of the events described. The problem is that it results in a very dry writing style that is not necessarily easy to read.
Having said that, there are many good things about the book. Gray was so highly involved in many events in the civil rights movement that he is a living encyclopedia. Because of the breadth of his work, there is a vast amount of material to cover. There is a lot to be learned about the civil rights movement from this book. For example, and perhaps I am exposing my ignorance, I had not heard of William Moore before reading this book. I learned a lot that I did not previously know from Gray.
However, the amount of experience Gray has is a double edged sword. Because he was involved in so much and has so much to tell, many events only get surface level treatment. For example, William Moore gets one paragraph. Bloody Sunday only gets a couple of pages. One would have to go to other sources to get a deeper understanding of may of the events Gray participated in.
The biggest let down of the book is the lack of insight into Gray's emotional response to the things he describes. This is not a memoir in the traditional sense.
Gray's motivation for his work is evident on nearly every page. If you don't learn anything else about Gray, you will know that it was his mission to destroy everything segregated he could find. Other than that, Gray doesn't reveal much about how he felt. The closest he comes to really revealing his emotions is the chapter where he discusses the withdrawal of his nomination to be a federal district judge. You can sense the anger. I want more of that. I want to know more about how Gray reacted to his achievements and setbacks. How did he feel after Bloody Sunday? Did he get discouraged? Did he ever consider giving up? Had Gray been more vulnerable and revealed more of his emotional side, this book would have been without equal.
Overall, this book is a solid resource on the civil rights movement and it is well worth reading. A reader approaching it for the first time should know that it may be a slog that is tedious to get through, at times.
Displaying 1 of 1 review