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Frederick Thomas Gray

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American politician
Frederick T. Gray
Member of the Virginia Senate
from the 11th district
In office
January 12, 1972 – January 11, 1984
Preceded byLloyd C. Bird
Succeeded byRobert E. Russell
Member of the Virginia House of Delegates for Chesterfield and Colonial Heights City
In office
January 12, 1966 – January 12, 1972
Preceded byEdward M. Hudgins
Succeeded byAlex McMurtrie Jr.
29th Attorney General of Virginia
In office
April 30, 1961 – January 13, 1962
Appointed byJ. Lindsay Almond
Preceded byAlbertis Harrison
Succeeded byRobert Young Button
Personal details
BornFrederick Thomas Gray
(1918-10-10)October 10, 1918
Petersburg, Virginia, U.S.
DiedMay 14, 1992(1992-05-14) (aged 73)
Chester, Virginia, U.S.
SpouseEva Helms Johnson
Children2
Alma materUniversity of Richmond (LLB)
Military service
Allegiance United States
Branch/serviceUnited States Army
Battles/warsWorld War II

Frederick Thomas Gray (October 10, 1918 – May 14, 1992) was a Virginia attorney and Democratic Party politician. Governor J. Lindsay Almond appointed Gray to serve as Attorney General of Virginia after the resignation of Attorney General Albertis Harrison (a member of the Democratic political organization led by Senator Harry F. Byrd) to run for Governor of Virginia during the Massive Resistance crisis in Virginia. Gray returned to private practice at Williams Mullen after Robert Young Button (elected Attorney General during the same 1961 election in which Harrison became Governor) took office. Gray later served in the Virginia House of Delegates and the Virginia Senate (both part-time positions) as he continued his law practice.

Early and family life

Frederick Gray was born in Petersburg, Virginia to Franklin Pierce and the former Mary Gervase (Pouder).

The day Gray was commissioned as a first lieutenant and navigator in the Army Air Corps, October 16, 1943, he married Evelyn Helms Johnson of Chesterfield County, Virginia who had traveled cross-country to the wedding in Sacramento, California. After decades living at her family's ancestral home at Bermuda Hundred, Virginia, she survived him, as would a son (with his father's name but nickname "Rick") and daughter.

After World War II ended, Gray attended the University of Richmond Law School and was admitted to the Virginia Bar.

Career

Gray served as an Assistant attorney general for the Commonwealth of Virginia from 1949–1957 and briefly as attorney general (1961–1962). Between those public service stints, he was a partner at various law firms, including Williams Mullen (1957–1961, 62–83), and later at Gray, Sinnott, Tucker & Duke in Chesterfield, Virginia (1983–1985). In 1965, Gray's testimony that Virginia did not discriminate against black voters was subject to cross-examination by U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, which civil rights attorney and later fellow Virginia State Senator Henry L. Marsh believes led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1967 Gray argued and lost Green v. County School Board of New Kent County before the U.S.Supreme Court; the court striking down the nominal school choice plans based on their actual performance.

Gray served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1966 until 1972, when he began service in the Virginia Senate. In the redistricting after Davis v. Mann for the 1965 election the district consisting of Chesterfield County and the City of Colonial Heights, previously represented by Edward M. Hudgins, received an additional delegate slot. Gray and John S. Hansen won election to represent that district District 23. Gray was re-elected in 1967 and 1969, but Hansen resigned between those elections, and was replaced by Republican George Wilson Jones. Also, in the 1969 election, Jones polled more votes than Gray in the 2-member district, which was split and after the 1970 census such that Jones won re-election to the 36th district in subsequent years. Alexander B. McMurtrie Jr. succeeded Gray, who ran for the state Senate in 1971.

Gray represented Chesterfield County with various adjacent areas in the 11th Senatorial District (1972–1984). He first won election to the newly configured 11th district in 1971. Lloyd C. Bird had previously represented Chesterfield County, along with Amelia, Charles City and New Kent Counties and the city of Colonial Heights as District 29 in the 1967 election and with James City County and the City of Williamsburg rather than Amelia County in the 1963 election as District 32, and before that with Charles City, Chesterfield and Henrico Counties and the city of Colonial Heights as District 33. Before the 1971 election, District 11 encompassed various counties south and west of Chesterfield County, not even adjacent to Chesterfield County. In any event, the district configuration changed after the election, so that in 1974 and 1975 Senator Gray represented Chesterfield and Henrico counties, with another part of Chesterfield county agglomerated with Amelia, Brunswick, Cumberland, Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Nottoway and Powhatan Counties in District 17, represented by James T. Edmunds. Neither Gray nor Edmunds was opposed. Gray also won re-election unopposed in 1975 and 1979. Republican Robert E. Russell Sr. ran unopposed in that district in 1983.

A past president of the Chesterfield Bar Association, Gray also served on the board of directors of Pioneer Savings & Loan and Jefferson National Bank (eastern region).

Death and legacy

A bridge on Route 295 over the Appomattox River was named in his honor in 1998. His children also established a charitable trust in honor of their parents.

References

  1. "GRAY, EVELYN". Retrieved 11 May 2017.
  2. ^ "Frederick T. Gray & Evelyn J. Gray Memorial Endowment | John Randolph Foundation". Archived from the original on 2016-06-08. Retrieved 2016-06-20.
  3. Fain, Travis. "After 50 years, reflecting on the Voting Rights Act and its impact, future". Retrieved 11 May 2017.
  4. Jeremy Irons, Jim Crow's Children: The Broken Promise of the Brown Decision (Penguin, 2004), pp.
  5. J. Harvie Wilkinson, From Brown to Bakke: The Supreme Court and School Integration: 1955–1970 (Oxford University Press, 1979) pp. 115-
  6. "Welcome to the Virginia House of Delegates". dela.state.va.us. Retrieved 11 May 2017.
  7. "Virginia Elections Database » 1969 House of Delegates General Election District 23". Virginia Elections Database. Retrieved 11 May 2017.
  8. General Assembly of Virginia 1619–1978 (Richmond: Library of Virginia, 1978) pp.755, 759
  9. Leonard, Virginia General Assembly Bicentennial Edition at pp. 733, 739, 744, 750–751, 756–757
  10. "County of Henrico, Virginia November 06, 1979". henrico.us. Retrieved November 17, 2022.
  11. "Virginia Elections Database » Search Elections". Virginia Elections Database. Retrieved 11 May 2017.
  12. "LIS > Bill Tracking > HB1427 > 1998 session". Lis.virginia.gov. Retrieved 2017-05-11.
Legal offices
Preceded byAlbertis S. Harrison Attorney General of Virginia
1961–1962 		Succeeded byRobert Y. Button
Attorneys general of Virginia
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