The Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Fred Gray
tells the inside story, the real story, of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, the lawsuit that eventually brought some compensation to the Study victims and survivors, and the events culminating in the White House apology. This book also explains the plans to create a prominent memorial and research center in Tuskegee, Alabama, as a permanent legacy of the experiment and of the rich history and culture of the area.
I wrote this book because God placed me in a position to do so. My first book, Bus Ride To Justice, told how I became a civil rights lawyer after growing up in segregated Montgomery, Alabama. My hard-working mother and my supportive community encouraged me to get a college education and then go to law school, even though I had to leave my home state to find a law school that would admit Negroes, as we were then called. After graduating from Case Western Reserve Law School, I could have taken a job in Cleveland, Ohio, but I returned to Alabama, determined to “destroy everything segregated I could find.” At the age of twenty-three, I became one of only two African American attorneys in Montgomery. One of my first clients was Rosa Parks, who was arrested after she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a segregated city bus. Subsequently, I became the attorney for the Montgomery Bus Boycott and its inspired leader, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I worked with Martin King, Rosa Parks, E. D. Nixon, and other giants of what mushroomed into the Civil Rights Movement. Between 1955 and 1972, I filed dozens of successful lawsuits to desegregate schools, housing, transportation, places of employment, and other areas of public life. In the mid-1960s I moved my residence forty miles up the road to Tuskegee, Alabama, and in 1970 I became one of the first two African Americans elected to the Alabama legislature since Reconstruction.
Meanwhile, I continued a busy practice in both civil rights and more routine legal matters. I was also a full-time minister in the Church of Christ. I was involved in the community and, I believe it is fair to say, was probably the best-known African American attorney in Alabama.
Yet, until the Tuskegee Syphilis Study became public knowledge through news reports in 1972, I was unaware of the experiment that had existed in my community for forty years. As far as the general public was concerned, the study had been kept a total secret. Nevertheless, when one of the men involved in the study approached me, I immediately recognized the seriousness of what had been done. The man rightfully felt, based on what was being reported in the media, that he had been mistreated and he wanted me to sue whoever was responsible. Consequently, I filed the lawsuit and with the help of my colleagues eventually won a settlement on behalf of all the participants in the study.
Over the years, I remained in close contact with many of the surviving participants. I included a chapter on the case in Bus Ride To Justice, which was published in 1995. Then, in 1997, the Home Box Office cable television company presented the dramatic film Miss Evers’ Boys, which was based on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Many of the men involved in the study were deeply offended by this movie, which they felt misrepresented them and the facts of the study. In any case, this movie and a stage play of the same name brought the case back into the media spotlight.
Over a period of time, many people, including myself, realized that even though there had been a settlement in the lawsuit on behalf of the study victims, and the study itself had been ended, there were still unresolved issues that should be addressed. Gradually, the idea emerged for a public apology from the federal government to the victims of the study, including surviving participants and the families of those who had died. For several months, my late wife and I worked together on events which led to the Presidential apology.
Now, using case files, personal knowledge, and interviews and statements of numerous people involved in various aspects of the Study, I have compiled a record which I hope will be compelling and useful reading for students, teachers, researchers, and anyone interested in understanding why and how such an episode could have happened. This book has been written in the hope that the past will not be forgotten and that this type of occurrence will never happen again.
It has been said that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. I love my country, and I believe that, through the help of God, the long pendulum of history is slowly swinging in the direction of justice and equality. Nonetheless, the history of African Americans has been too painful to repeat, so we had best remember and remember well.
Fred D. Gray
Tuskegee, Alabama
I am going to tell this story from my perspective as the attorney for the men who were participants in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, and as a veteran civil rights lawyer. However, this story belongs to Charlie Pollard, Herman Shaw, and the other 621 participants and family members I was privileged to represent. The story also belongs to my late wife, Bernice, who was a meaningful source of encouragement during and after the lawsuit and who was instrumental in the conception of the Tuskegee Human and Civil Rights Multicultural Center.
I acknowledge with gratitude my co-counsel of record, my law partner for more than twenty-five years, Solomon S. Seay, Jr. In addition, over the years, the following attorneys in our law firm assisted: Edwin L. Davis (1926-1998), Charles D. Langford, Cleveland Thornton, Billy Carter, Honorable Aubrey Ford, Walter E. McGowan, Stanley F. Gray, Fred D. Gray, Jr., and Ernestine S. Sapp.
I also acknowledge with great appreciation the assistance James H. Jones gave me during the early stages of Pollard, et al. v. United States of America, et al. He located the early records of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study in 410 boxes in the National Archives. These records assisted in settling the lawsuit. Mr. Jones is also the author of Bad Blood, and has granted permission to quote portions of his book. He is now a Professor of History at the University of Houston, in Houston, Texas. Notice should also be paid to Peter Buxtun, who courageously called this matter to the attention of the public.
I am grateful for the assistance rendered by Jack Greenburg, who at the time we filed the suit was Director/Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He recommended Michael Sovern, then Dean of Columbia University Law School to serve as legal consultant. I am appreciative to Dean Sovern and Harold Edgar, a professor at Columbia University Law School. They rendered valuable assistance in drafting pleadings, briefs, preparation of settlement documents, and generally serving as legal consultants.
I express my thanks to Joanne C. Bibb, my secretary for thirty years, who has had the primary responsibility in recent years of working with me, the participants and heirs of deceased participants, including serving as an escort for Mr. Herman Shaw to attend the presidential apology. She has rendered valuable service in filing, preserving, and coordinating the records in this case, and in assisting with this book.
I am most appreciative to the late Honorable Preston Hornsby, who was Judge of Probate of Macon County at the time the lawsuit was filed. Without Judge Hornsby’s assistance in appointing 463 personal representatives of the estates of the deceased participants, many of the heirs of the deceased participants would not have shared in the proceeds of the settlement.
In addition, I thank Thomas Caver, Clerk of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, for his assistance with the calculations and disbursements of funds to the participants and the heirs of deceased participants.
I am grateful to the following members of our staff who assisted in various capacities: Alberta Magruder, Trudy B. Powell, Annie L. Bailey, Vanessa Gray Taylor, Patsy D. Smith, and Sherrie P. Cook. Patricia Powell transcribed most of the manuscript.
I am deeply appreciative to my editor, Randall Williams, of Black Belt Press.[1] When I was writing Bus Ride To Justice, Randall and I realized many of the cases referred to were of sufficient historical significance to deserve books of their own. At that time, we could only give a summary of those cases. Shortly after the apology, we began to discuss and work on this book. He is everything you would want in an editor, a friend, and a publisher. He has tremendous skill, insight, knowledge, experience, and has greatly assisted in guiding me in the production