Kevin Alexander Gray

Kevin Alexander Gray (July 1, 1957 – March 7, 2023) was an American political activist and author, based in South Carolina. Gray was involved in community organizing, working on a variety of issues ranging from racial politics, police violence, third-world politics & relations, union organizing & workers’ rights, grassroots political campaigns, marches, actions & political events.

Kevin Alexander Gray
BornJuly 1, 1957
DiedMarch 7, 2023
NationalityAmerican
Alma materWofford College
Notable workWaiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics
Board member ofACLU
Gray speaks at the Fighting Bob Fest in Wisconsin, in 2014.

Early life

Spending his early years in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Gray and his younger sister Valerie were among the first blacks to attend the local all-white Fairforest Elementary School in 1969.[1]

Gray was a graduate of Wofford College and worked on his doctoral degree in political science at American University. He served as second in command in Company C, 391st Engineers Combat Corps, United States Army Reserves in Spartanburg in the 1980s. The Corps won the Lt. General Emerson C. Ischner Award in 1988 for the number one Company grade reserve unit in the Army Reserves nationwide.[2] The award is presented annually by the Society of American Military Engineers.

Activism

Gray served as a national board member of the American Civil Liberties Union for four years and was past nine term president of the South Carolina affiliate of the ACLU.[3]

Gray spoke out frequently against South Africa's system of apartheid[4][5] and in favor of support for Palestine.[6] He participated in protests against the flying of the Confederate flag on the South Carolina State House grounds, burning a Confederate flag in the process.[7]

He was a founding member of the Rainbow Coalition in 1986, and former co-chair of the Southern Rainbow Education Project—a coalition of southern activists. He was also a former contributing editor of the Independent Political Action Bulletin.

Gray organized the Harriet Tubman Freedom House Project which focused on community based political and cultural education. He was Organizer of the National Mobilization Committee Against the Drug War. Advisory board member of DRC Net (Drug Policy Reform Coalition). Gray gave a featured speech at public rallies held after the 2015 Charleston Church Shooting at [Mother] Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.[8]

Political campaigns
Further information: Jesse Jackson 1988 presidential campaign, Tom Harkin 1992 presidential campaign, 2010 United States Senate election in South Carolina, and 2002 South Carolina gubernatorial election

Gray served as South Carolina coordinator for the 1988 presidential campaign of Jesse Jackson,[9] 1992 southern political director for the presidential campaign of Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and the 2010 US Senate campaign of Green Party candidate Tom Clements.[10]

In 1997, Gray was an organizer for the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition’s anti-Proposition 209 marches in San Francisco and Sacramento, California.

In 2002, Gray was a gubernatorial candidate representing the South Carolina United Citizens’ Party & Green Party. He did not have the required signatures to be on the ballot, and consequently ran as a write-in candidate.[11]

Written works

Gray authored/edited the following books:

  • Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics: Selected Essays on Politics & Culture. 2008. AK Press. ISBN 978-1-904859-91-8
  • The Decline of Black Politics – From Malcolm X to Barack Obama. 2008. Verso Books. ISBN 978-1-84467-284-4
  • Editor, Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of Violence. 2014, CounterPunch. ISBN 978-0-692-21399-5

Additional publications

Additional publications by Gray included:

  • “A Call for a New Anti-War Movement” appeared in How to Legalize Drugs: Public Health, Social Science and Civil Liberties Perspective, edited by Dr. Jefferson Fish of St. John’s University in 1998. The book is a collection of works by US drug policy experts. Gray's essay examined cultural and ideological aspects of the impact of the “war on drugs” on African Americans. ISBN 978-0-7657-0151-0
  • “Soul Brother? Bill Clinton and Black America” in Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair’s Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils, published by CounterPunch, 2004. ISBN 978-1-904859-03-1
  • “The Legacy of Strom Thurmond” in Jack Newfield’s American Monsters: 44 Rats, Blackhats and Plutocrats, published by Thunder's Mouth Press, 2004. ISBN 978-1-56025-554-3
  • Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion. Contributor, with Ralph Nader and Kathy Kelly. Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank, eds. AK Press, 2012. ISBN 978-1-84935-110-2
  • “What Malcolm Might Say” in Peace Not Terror: Leaders of the Antiwar Movement Speak Out Against U.S. Foreign Policy Post 9/11, edited by Mary Susannah Robbins, Lexington Books, 2008. ISBN 978-0-7391-2497-0

Gray was a weekly guest on Dave Marsh’s Sirius XM satellite radio show “Live From the Land of Hopes and Dreams” and a frequent panelist on Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Sunday radio broadcast, and NewsTalk on Irish National Radio. Other essays by Gray on race and politics appeared in The Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy – “The Intensification of Racial Solidarity in the 1990s under the guise of Black Nationalism” (1996); The Progressive Magazine, Counterpunch, The Washington Post Outlook Section, Emerge, One Magazine, The Nation, The New Liberator, The American University Graduate Review & numerous other international, national, regional & local publications.[12] Gray’s essays on race, politics, cultural and world affairs were found online at Counterpunch.com, The Black Agenda Report, “Holla If You Hear Me” blog and The Black Commentator. Gray was a frequent columnist for the national monthly magazine The Progressive, a contributing writer for The Charleston Chronicle and The Free Times of Columbia and a former managing editor and contributing editor of Black News in Columbia.

Later life and death

In 2020 Gray opened Railroad BBQ on Hampton Street in Columbia, a restaurant and repository for the hundreds of civil and human rights ephemera he collected over the years.[13][14]

Gray died on March 7, 2023.[15][16][17][18][19][20] He was recognized by Richland County (SC) Council,[21] the South Carolina Legislature,[22] and by Congressman Jim Clyburn.[23]

References
  1. Gray, Kevin Alexander (January 14, 2012). "Dawkins: An unsung hero in Spartanburg County education". Go Upstate. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  2. "Kevin Alexander Gray Condolences". Leevy's Funeral Home Obituary Comments. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  3. Karr, Gary (October 7, 1994). "Blacks Blast Democrat For Publicizing Criminal Record of GOP Black Aide". The Associated Press. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  4. "Madiba: The evolution of former South African president Nelson Mandela". Al Jazeera America. December 6, 2015. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  5. Gray, Kevin Alexander (December 12, 2013). "SC and Mandela: Give credit where credit is due". Facing South. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  6. "Radical Black Reading: Summer 2014". The Public Archive. July 22, 2014. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  7. "Kevin Gray and the Confederate Flag". Flickr. April 20, 2008. Retrieved June 2, 2023.
  8. Gray, Kevin Alexander (July 17, 2015). "Beyond White / Man's Country [the complete text of Kevin Alexander Gray's July 4th 2015 speech at the South Carolina Statehouse in Columbia and in Charleston in the days following the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church murders.]". CounterPunch. Retrieved June 2, 2023.
  9. Edsall, Thomas B. (March 13, 1988). "JACKSON WINS WITH MAJORITY IN SOUTH CAROLINA CAUCUSES". Washington Post. Retrieved June 2, 2023.
  10. West, Scott (July 21, 2011). "Green Senate candidate runs historic campaign". Green Pages News. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  11. O'Cain, Susan (July 16, 2002). "Gray to run as write in candidate". WLTX-TV. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  12. Kolhatkar, Sonali (March 16, 2023). "What I Learned From Kevin Alexander Gray". Yes Magazine. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  13. Clarey, David (March 8, 2023). "A pair of Columbia restaurants opened as COVID-19 escalated — how are they doing?". Post and Courier. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  14. Gray, Kevin Alexander (December 23, 2020). "Smoking Meat, Hoping to Survive". The Nation. Retrieved June 2, 2023.
  15. Wade, Hannah (March 8, 2023). "Kevin Alexander Gray, Columbia civil rights activist and restaurant owner, has died". Post and Courier. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  16. "Longtime South Carolina activist Kevin Alexander Gray dies". WLTX-TV. March 8, 2023. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  17. Pierre, Jemima (March 15, 2023). "Farewell, Senior Brother: In Memory of Kevin Alexander Gray". Black Agenda Report. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  18. St. Clair, Jeffrey (March 8, 2023). "Kevin Alexander Gray: A Mighty Heart Has Stopped But It Didn't Fail". Counterpunch. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  19. "Kevin Alexander Gray, Civil Rights Activist and Jesse Jackson SC Campaign Mgr., Dies at 65". Democracy Now. March 9, 2023. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  20. Smith, Nevin (March 8, 2023). "Midlands activist and author dies at 65-years-old". WIS-TV. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  21. "Minutes" (PDF). Richland County Council. March 21, 2023. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  22. Legislature, South Carolina (March 28, 2023). "A Concurrent resolution: To Express the Profound Sorrow of the Members of the South Carolina House of Representatives Upon the Passing of Kevin Alexander Gray of Richland County and to Extend Their Deepest Sympathy to His Large and Loving Family and His Many Friends". South Carolina Legislature. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  23. "Tribute to Kevin Alexander Gray by Hon. James E. Clyburn". Congressional Record. March 10, 2023. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
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