Professor Jeff Baker Appointed Fred D. Gray Institute for Human and Civil Rights Fellow

At its inaugural symposium in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 14-15, 2025, the Fred D. Gray Institute for Human and Civil Rights appointed professor Jeffrey R. Baker to its second cohort of Gray Institute Fellows. Fred D. Gray is one of the nation’s foremost civil rights attorneys. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called Gray “the Movement’s Lawyer.” Gray represented Rosa Parks, Dr. King, John Lewis, and hundreds more in the civil rights movement, leading cases to challenge segregation, protect the Selma-to-Montgomery March, integrate schools and universities, defend voting rights and freedom of speech, and advocate for the victims of the Tuskegee Syphilis Studies, among many other causes. His life’s mission has been to “destroy everything segregated I could find.”

Gray and the board founded the Fred D. Gray Institute for Human and Civil Rights to remember and study the legacy of Gray’s work and the Civil Rights Movement, to assess its progress and struggle in the present, and to advance justice and equity into the future.  

The new cohort of institute Fellows includes Baker, professor Bryan Adamson of Case Western Reserve University School of Law, professor Bryan Fair of the University of Alabama School of Law, professor Ayesha Bell Hardaway of Case Western Reserve University School of Law, pastor Derrick Jackson of First Baptist Gallatin (Tennessee), and Trent Ogilvie of the Columbia Peace and Justice Initiative. 

The Gray Institute Fellows are a national group of outstanding individuals with distinguished backgrounds and great competencies, appointed to two-year terms. They will be project-based, providing leadership and work as well as substantial external relationships to benefit the Institute’s initiatives. Institute Fellows steward generative possibilities for thought and action arising from the 2025 Symposium - especially Gray’s work in medical racism, voting rights, gerrymandering, human and civil rights law, and equal access to quality education for all. Fellows will help cultivate the 2026 Symposium through planning, participation, and overall wisdom, and will nurture Institute relationships and bring expertise, ideas, and substantial work to the entire enterprise. 

Baker served on the organizing committee and was a panelist at the inaugural 2025 symposium. 

Additional information may be found at The Fred D. Gray Institute