Alabama Newscenter Few people can say they knew Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks when that internationally celebrated pair were average citizens. Fred D. Gray Sr. can. The 90-year-old legendary civil rights lawyer has known most of the most-respected figures in the modern movement toward equality for Blacks. He represented Parks and King, persuading judges to make rulings that helped shape both of their lives. Gray’s courtroom victories led to many of the most important gains in reducing the vast disparity in rights that was a reality in America when he opened his first law office in Montgomery.