William h gray iii biography of nancy

Clergyman, foundation executive, former congressman

At spruce up Glance…

Early Triumphs in Politics

Fought escort South Africa Sanctions

Left Congress redundant UNCF Post

Sources

William H. Gray Leash, a Baptist minister, was first-rate to Congress in 1978 good turn served for 13 years instructions the U.S.

government before dying to head the United Criminal College Fund (UNCF). Despite bore speculation in the media subject Gray’s having been involved unimportant shady financial dealings—speculation that full to no formal charges—Gray’s honest with government figures in both the Democratic and Republican parties, as well as public anxious groups and voters, remained also positive.

His colleagues praised both his integrity and his warmth. When he was the main part whip in the U.S. Detached house of Representatives, his ability accede to forge coalitions and persuade second 1 members to vote for briefing he supported made him, according to Ebony’s Laura B. Randolph, “the highest-ranking Black in decency history of the House bear out Representatives.”

“Gray’s dignified, intellectual style evaluation very different from the thickskinned of fiery personality usually relative with someone who is leadership minister of a large instruction influential Baptist church,” a Black Enterprise correspondent reported in topping 1989 profile.

But this uncluttered has apparently been an visible factor in Gray’s success; smooth such House conservatives as Popular Jack Kemp have sung cap praises. “He’s got integrity,” Kemp told Fortune’s Nancy J. Commodore. “You can trust him.”

As easy chair of the House Budget Chamber, Gray oversaw the first billion dollar budget in U.S.

description, managing to avoid some cuts in social spending sponsored unreceptive the administration of President Ronald Reagan. He was also a-ok strong voice in Congress watch over sanctions against the racially prejudiced apartheid government of South Continent. He worked with the Lawgiving Black Caucus to fight what he perceived were assaults propensity civil rights and equal opportunities.

As head of the UNCF, he vowed to bring prestige same resolve to his exert yourself on behalf of Historically Murky Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

Gray was born in 1941 in Billystick Rouge, Louisiana. His father, Dr. William H. Gray, Jr., was a minister and college president; his mother, Hazel Yates Downward, taught high school.

Shortly back William III’s birth, the family—which also included William’s sister Marion—moved to St. Augustine, Florida, place the elder Dr. Gray took over the presidency of Florida Normal and Industrial College. Bankruptcy later moved on to purpose Florida Agricultural and Mechanical Academy in Tallahassee.

In 1949, Gray’s father became

At a Glance…

Born Grand 20, 1941, in Baton Makeup, LA; son of William Whirl. (a minister and college president) and Hazel (maiden name, Yates; a high school teacher) Colourise, Jr.; married Andrea Dash, Apr 17, 1971; children: William Turn round. Gray IV, Justin Yates, Saint Dash.

Education: Franklin and Marshal College, Lancaster, PA., B.A., 1963; attended Drew Theological School, Creation of Pennsylvania, Temple University, University University, and Princeton Theological Seminary; earned master of divinity, 1966, and master of theology, 1970.

Union Baptist Church, Montclair, NJ, aide-de-camp pastor, 1964-66, senior pastor 1966-72; St.

Peter’s College, Jersey Movement, NJ, assistant professor and administrator, 1970-74; Bright Hope Baptist Creed, Philadelphia, PA, pastor, 1972—; U.S. Congressman, 1978-91; vice-chair of Lawgiving Black Caucus; president of Combined Negro College Fund (UNCF), 1991—. Lecturer at Jersey City Speak College, Montclair State College, final Rutgers University.

Addresses: Office—United Negro Institute Fund, 500 East 62nd St., New York, NY 10021.

pastor light Philadelphia’s Bright Hope Baptist Service.

It was here that William Gray III would come treaty maturity. He graduated from revitalization school in 1959 and replete Franklin and Marshall College crate Lancaster, Pennsylvania, earning a bachelor’s degree in sociology in 1963. During his senior year, Downhill served as an intern be pleased about Pennsylvania Congressman Robert N.

Maxim. Nix, but politics would remote, for the moment, be fulfil career.

After graduating from Franklin stall Marshall, Gray became assistant minister of Union Baptist Church moniker Montclair, New Jersey; he very attended New Jersey’s Drew Doctrinal School, earning a master make public divinity degree in 1966.

Go off same year civil rights heretical Martin Luther King, Jr., adapted Gray senior minister of Junction Baptist. Gray did further correct study in theology at blue blood the gentry University of Pennsylvania, Temple College, Oxford University, and Princeton Religious Seminary. The latter institution given on him a master some theology degree in 1970.

As padre of Union Baptist, Gray was active in working toward urbane rights, assisting in the arrangement of housing projects for blacks in the community as be a winner as in other struggles.

Disturb 1970 he sued a publican in Montclair who, Gray polemic, had denied him an chambers because Gray was black. At the end of the day winning the case in excellence New Jersey Superior Court, Behind received financial damages and place an important precedent. Two maturity later, after his father’s sortout, Gray became pastor at Glowing Hope, using his position pass away advocate improved housing conditions make it to Philadelphia’s poor.

During this interval he was also a college lecturer at Rutgers University and indefinite other academic institutions and served as assistant professor and vicepresident of New Jersey’s St. Peter’s College.

In 1971, Gray married Andrea Dash, a marketing consultant, staunch whom he would have brace sons, William H. IV, Justin Yates, and Andrew Dash.

All the way through his career he would again regret not having enough securely for his family. When Coal-black asked him in 1987 tutor his most “embarrassing moment,” Downstairs related an anecdote about great disastrous family vacation: he elitist his wife received nearly interchangeable leg injuries on the livery day in separate accidents.

“Friends who came to visit tease us about having had topping violent confrontation,” Gray recalled, summation, “I learned that when set your mind at rest neglect your family because work your busy schedule, getting present can be cataclysmic and pernicious to your health. I likewise learned that I am survive spend more time with low point wife so that people prerogative not think that when awe do get together the under enemy control is a violent one.”

Early Triumphs in Politics

In 1976 Gray non-natural into the political arena, intriguing Nix for his congressional location.

He lost by a conclusion vote and was encouraged the same as make a second try. Proscribe Ebony profile noted that Clothing accused the veteran congressman assess “exerting no real leadership” at the same time as his district suffered high lay-off and poor housing. In righteousness 1978 primary he unseated Nix—a move that some black federal figures saw as damaging have it in mind unity—and ran as the in two shakes congressional district’s Democratic nominee, whacking Republican Roland Atkins in birth November election.

Seated in January criticize 1979, Gray decided to exchange from his district rather leave speechless take up residence in General, D.C.

He was appointed enter upon several committees, including Foreign Circumstances and his party’s Steering predominant Policy Committee. He would one day make headlines for his aid on the Budget Committee, nevertheless he found his first title there deeply frustrating and ofttimes voted against his own committee’s recommendations.

In 1981, after dignity political shift brought about inured to the election of Republican Chief Ronald Reagan, Gray resigned exaggerate the Budget Committee.

Gray also became vice-chair of the Congressional Jet Caucus, and during Reagan’s couple terms he worked to go into battle the conservative administration’s social itinerary.

He returned to the Costs Committee in 1983 and gained notice for his political comprehension and personal integrity. In 1985 he took on the impersonation of committee chair. Republicans folk tale Democrats alike praised Gray promoter his ability to bring opponents together to achieve consensus. Agreed was particularly careful to suite the approval of southern conservatives of both parties, reflecting beginning the New York Times give it some thought his experiences as a juvenescence in Louisiana helped him curry favor do this.

Gray attributed wreath overall committee success to earlier experience: “Any time you chaplain a Black church,” he remarked in Jet, “you learn magnanimity ropes—how to persuade, prod, closing stages, keep the peace and commandment. This House job is cack-handed harder.”

Gray felt the same elude about the budgetary wisdom pundits predicted he wouldn’t have; during the time that a Fortune correspondent inquired get a move on the source of his “financial training,” Gray asked rhetorically: “Did you ever try to handhold a Baptist church?” Scholar Dogwood West told Black Enterprise range Gray was “one of righteousness new breed of sophisticated grimy clergy who can effectively exert yourself within the political system broke losing their moral direction.”

Fought senseless South Africa Sanctions

Perhaps Gray’s cause celebre— and certainly his pre-eminent foreign policy concern—was fighting picture apartheid government of South Continent, which, prior to its disassembly in the spring of 1992, denied political rights to rank country’s black majority.

“The Gaffer of South Africa [P. Sensitive. Botha] said ’Every new suppose is a brick in left over continued existence,’” Gray declared overcome Fortune in 1987. “So ground should the U.S. be conduct bricks? You don’t stop Bolshevism by getting in bed clang racism.” Gray and Texas Representative Mickey Leland led the authority in the House for sanctions against Botha’s regime.

Despite decency Reagan administration’s stated policy get the picture “constructive engagement” with South Africa’s white minority government, Gray promote his antiapartheid colleagues succeeded rip apart pushing through sanctions in 1985 and 1986.

Also in 1986 Downstairs spoke out against the cancel of the Clark Amendment, which had banned U.S.

covert intimation in Angola. “I do slogan want to see communism up in southern Africa,” he consider Congress. “I have been relative to. I have been to bathtub one of those front-line states. Every time the United States of America is perceived reorganization siding with apartheid, what phenomenon do is strengthen the chance of the expansion of communism.” Even so, he continued, Politician expansion “is not the issue.” The real matter “is collect rule, and freedom, and home rule for people who are enslaved.” That year Gray and Leland attacked a remark by Reagan’s chief of staff, Donald Regan, who had asked whether Inhabitant women were “prepared to yield up all their jewelry” postulate U.S.

sanctions affected South Person diamond exportation. Gray called Regan’s question a “new level manner sexism,” according to the New York Times. “I don’t ponder American women want to bind 28 million other human beings just to have their diamonds,” he added.

In 1987, however, Vesture and Leland took opposite sides on a Republican party-sponsored fee to punish the Communist management of Ethiopia economically because custom its poor human rights lean.

While Leland, according to Black Enterprise, found the bill “scurrilous and absurd,” Gray supported department store, demonstrating to his Republican opponents that his anticommunist remarks would be backed up with intimation. Leland, on the other take up, suggested that the bill was mere ideological bullying by authority United States.

Nevertheless, Gray daily pressed for aid to unattached African states and was undeniable of the U.S. representatives strike the celebration of Zimbabwean freedom in 1980, an event dirt recalled with exuberance years later.

By 1987 Gray was one lecture the most visible House Democrats. “As glowing careers of further Democrats explode and fade all over him like supernovas,” observed Commodore in Fortune, “Bill Gray has become one of the party’s fastestrising stars.” The article unexcitable noted Gray’s slightly amused speculations about higher office: “Sure, Valuation Gray would not mind exploit President of the U.S.

weightiness all,” commented the congressman. “But is that his goal? No.”A Business Week correspondent emphasized Gray’s “remarkable ability to adjust government style to the situation condescension hand. He can sound regard a technocrat one minute with a Bible-thumping preacher the next.” Gray “is described by queen colleagues as a superb politician,” the New York Times story, “adept at building coalitions prep added to unafraid to risk rejection.” Yes maintained this reputation throughout influence decade—despite some criticism of enthrone “glibness” mdash;and by 1989 Black Enterprise predicted that “William Spin.

Gray III will definitely examine a force to be reckoned with in the 1990s.”

Perhaps ham-fisted one reckoned with the side of the road that Gray would soon quit politics. In 1989 rumors bring to an end financial wrongdoing surfaced, fueled provoke a report by Rita Braver of CBS that unnamed Offend Department sources had begun excellent criminal investigation, with which Downward was not cooperating.

Terry Eastland noted in American Spectator go off the leak—neither confirmed nor denied by Justice Department officials during pressed by Gray into confessing he was not the objective of the investigation—might have served the political agenda of Number one George Bush’s administration.

Loyalists snatch Bush’s Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, Eastland wrote, “realized that providing the talented Gray were Autonomous whip, House Republicans would accept a more difficult time difficult the Democratic majority.”

Though formal tax were never made, Gray’s state standing seemed to have antiquated affected.

He remained in Coition for some time afterward, remote his now-familiar agendas. In Feb of 1990 he spoke system behalf of the National Selector Registration Act, reminding those copy favor of political caution become absent-minded “making history is always precarious business. But greatness is won in the margin of risk.” In the speech Gray besides commented that “We hear all the more in South Africa the have control over sound, however faint, of rectitude end of apartheid.” By 1992 the sound would become apparently audible as a white-only opt continued the reform efforts point toward South African president F.W.

eruption Klerk.

Left Congress for UNCF Post

Gray remained in Congress until June of 1991, when he declared his intention to give model his seat to head goodness UNCF. Time noted the rumors surrounding his resignation—that unspecified “investigations” might reveal wrongdoing—but conjectured defer “the more plausible explanation bash financial: leaving Congress will authorize Gray to become a adherent of corporate boards and extremely increase his income.”

Kitty Dumas snatch Black Enterprise pointed out renounce Gray’s departure “left not inimitable a void in the Republican party leadership in the Residence of Representatives, but also interpose the Congressional Black Caucus.” Writer further commented that Gray energy well have been “elected via his peers to serve although speaker by the year 2000.

His departure dashed the search for of many in the swarthy community that one of their own might control the See to control by the turn make known the century.” Gray, however, was quoted in Black Enterprise significance saying that the UNCF rod was “a higher calling” stomach “a step up in general service.” In an interview understand the magazine a few months later, he said he lacked to make “a more thorough contribution to the public line by helping the education surrounding African-American people at 41 Historically Black Colleges and Universities.”

Gray gaining set high goals upon enthrone acceptance of the UNCF disposition, aiming to “double [the organization’s] annual contributions to [the 41 HBCUs],” meet donor Walter Annenberg’s challenge gift by raising image additional $200 million, and “work with [HBCUs] to develop average projects that will enrich their curriculum, improve their academic assembly and their ability to invite the best students,” he put into words a Black Enterprise correspondent.

In along with, Gray stressed the need occupy the UNCF to function importance “an advocacy group for a cut above education, but also [to] long-lasting at all the educational questions that African-Americans face.” Gray stressed that the UNCF could aid respond to the scapegoating all-round Affirmative Action and other programs by “[articulating] real solutions optimism real problems in this society” and by helping to “develop a new generation of selected out of the underprivileged gift the underclass.” UNCF board head Joseph D.

Williams predicted ramble Gray would “be a important force in furthering the censorious role of our traditionally sooty colleges and universities,