Portrait of Civil Rights Attorney Fred Gray Goes on Display

WHAT:          Fred Gray portrait

WHEN:         Wednesday, Dec. 18
                     11:30 a.m.

WHERE:       Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery  
                      Eighth and G streets N.W.   
                      First floor, presentation wall

The National Portrait Gallery will display it's newly acquired portrait of civil rights attorney Fred Gray by artist Michael Shane Neal Wednesday, Dec. 18. The portrait will be installed on the first-floor presentation wall. 

Born in 1930 in Montgomery, Alabama, Gray was a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1955, fresh out of law school, he represented Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks after they refused to give up their bus seats to white passengers in Montgomery. He also provided counsel to Martin Luther King Jr. during the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–56).

In 1975, Gray secured financial compensation for those affected by the 40-year Tuskegee Syphilis Study, an experiment that charted the effects of syphilis on 600 Black men without their knowledge or consent. Described by King as “the chief counsel” of the Civil Rights Movement, Gray received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022.

Neal’s oil portrait portrays Gray in the light of his office window. The artist, who completed the painting in 2023, has spoken about how the light symbolizes the attorney’s crucial role in bending the arc of the law toward justice. The commission of this portrait is made possible by the Friends of Fred Gray and is now part of the Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection.

On Sunday, Jan. 26, from 4:30–5:30 p.m., the Portrait Gallery will host a free conversation with Gray and Neal moderated by Sheryll Cashin, the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law, Civil Rights and Social Justice at Georgetown University Law Center. Registration is required.

Media and film crews who are interested in seeing the portrait may contact obusekge@si.edu.

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