In memoriam: Congressman, pastor William H. Gray III
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
William H. Gray III represented the Second Congressional District of Pennsylvania from 1979 to 1991, rising to become the country’s first African-American majority whip. Gray, 71, who died on July 1 while attending Wimbledon, was a third-generation pastor of North Philadelphia’s Bright Hope Baptist Church, who continued to preach on Sundays during his time in Congress. Gray was a product of the Black Political Forum, founded in 1968 to support the election of black Philadelphians independent of what co-founder John White Sr. called the Democratic Party machine’s “plantation politics.” Over a few decades, this independent movement would take over much of the system it once challenged. Gray became perhaps the most powerful of a generation of black politicians that included former mayors Wilson Goode and John Street. He left his powerful position in Congress in 1991 to become president of the United Negro College Fund, where the nonprofit credited him with raising $2.3 billion from 1991 to 2004. In 1994, President Bill Clinton appointed Gray a special advisor monitoring elections in Haiti.
