Bus Ride to Justice; Changing the System By The System. The Life and Works of Fred Gray

Montgomery, Alabama: Black Belt Press, 1995. First Edition. Octavo. 22cm. Publisher's gray cloth titled in black to spine. Dustjacket. [xvi]; 400pp. Light bumping to spine ends and some very light soiling in places, in a bright, clean dustjacket, internally clean, a near fine copy. Inscribed by the author to the half title:
"To Walter Burch, Keep up the Work, Fred W. Gray 4/27/95"

The Walter Burch in question is almost certainly the man who was originally part of the Greensboro PD and was a witness to (and professonal participantin) the manner in which the South treated those who defied the shackles and chains of "tradition" and in later (truncated) life seems to have developed an intense interest and sympathy in the cause. Mr. Burch's LEO history is also possibly the reason for the unusual "keep up the work" inscription, rather than the more usual "good work" phrasing; Mr. Gray had more than earned the right to a healthy skepticism, but they both would have been men of advanced years at this point.

Fred Gray was, among many other things connected to the African American struggle for Civil Rights, a lawyer who worked with MLK Jr., prosecuted on the Tuskegee Syphilis revelations on behalf of men who had been in the program, the desegregation of schools in Albama, the 1965 Selma March, and was the defense lawyer for Rosa Parks in her trial for breaking the segregated seating laws on Montgomery public transport. At just about every major flashpoint in the mid 20th century history of civil rights, Fred Gray was present, standing up, and being counted. (Inventory #: 82807)