From ENS-
Gray is best known as the man who stood up to racists in Mississippi in the 1950s and '60s, and he well deserves that renown. I first got to know Gray when he was my rector at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Oxford, where we lived until my family moved to Vicksburg when I was in my teens.
I was 13 when James Meredith became the first African-American student admitted to "Ole Miss" and the riot occurred. Years later, when my youngest daughter was looking at colleges, Gray was serving as the chaplain at the University of the South when we visited. I told him that if she decided to attend Sewanee, I wanted to return to talk to him about the riot at Ole Miss. My daughter chose the school, and it was during her freshman year and one of my talks with Gray that together we decided I would write his biography.
Gray began his efforts for racial justice when he was a senior in the School of Theology at University of the South in 1952-53. An African-American student had applied to the seminary, and the result was what came to be known as "the integration crisis" at Sewanee. The seminary faculty supported the young man's admission, while the head of the university -- who was Gray's uncle -- and the seminary's Board of Regents fought it. Gray was president of his seminary class and he and most other seminary students supported their faculty and the young man's admission.
When Gray graduated from seminary in 1953, his first churches were in Bolivar County, Mississippi, the county immediately north of the one in which the White Citizens Council had its origins. It was, of course, the Brown v. the Board of Education decision in 1954 that sparked the founding of the council, and again Gray spoke and wrote in opposition to the council's aims despite the protests of some of his parishioners and his neighbors.
More here-
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80050_128501_ENG_HTM.htm
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