[2][3] A lumber and banking executive, Gray became head of the Democratic Caucus in the Virginia Senate, and vehemently opposed school desegregation after the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and 1955.
His grandfather Alfred L. Gray had moved to Virginia from Sussex County, Delaware and established a lumber company to harvest the local swamp pines.
He was also a Mason, member of the Congregational Church (and taught Sunday School), local Ruritan and Rotary Clubs, and of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity.
Their Surry County summer home, at Swann's Point, overlooked the James River, but was destroyed by fire and not rebuilt.
His cousin "Red" Gray represented Sussex and Greensville Counties from 1938-1942 and also preceded him as president of the national Ruritan Club.
In November 1941, Peck Gray was elected to the Virginia Senate representing the 6th District (a part-time position), to replace Robert Williams Daniel, who had died in office.
He would serve for thirty years, with only a brief gap during World War II when he resigned citing family business obligations after he bought out his brother's interest in the business, his son left for VMI and military service overseas, and a devastating forest fire broke out during his mother's funeral on April 5, 1943 and burned 12,000 acres of timberland.
Despite his family's northern roots in Delaware, Gray's views on race mirrored those of most of his white constituents in the rural Southside Virginia community he represented.
An armed mob had descended on the jail and seized Jordan and marched him through the main street in Waverly to the railroad depot where he was strung up a tree and shot multiple times, before his corpse was set on fire in full view of passengers on a Norfolk and Western train that pulled into the station during the macabre proceeding.
[16] His successor was Anne Dobie Peebles of Sussex County, who served nearly three decades and succeeded future U.S. Supreme Court justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. as chairman in 1968, becoming that agency's first female leader.
[17] As the Massive Resistance crisis escalated, Gray introduced legislation mandating closure of schools which desegregated (even pursuant to court order), while he also advocated increased funding for scientific and technical studies after Russia's successful Sputnik satellite.
[18] Another participant in Massive Resistance was fellow Virginia Democratic state senator Frederick Thomas Gray (no relation) of Culpeper and the 11th District.
Gray's radicalization had also disturbed Commission Counsel David J. Mays, who thought many of the Stanley Plan laws would be declared unconstitutional by the courts (as they later were).
[19] Gray finally acceded to requests for party unity and deferred to attorney general J. Lindsay Almond (who had segregationist credentials for representing the losing Prince Edward County in a companion case to both Brown decisions).
Gray also owns the houses in Wye, which he provides rent-free to their occupants,” SCLC volunteer Laurayne F. James was quoted as saying in The Times-Dispatch report.
[29] Continuing his and Agnes' philanthropy in the neighboring community, a foundation was created by Elmon Gray, as well as a professorship in forestry at Virginia Tech.
The Loblolly pine seedlings produced here are the result of rigorous Tree Improvement Program (TIP) testing and are proven high performers for Virginia conditions.
The Garland Gray Forestry Center has state-of-the-art harvesting equipment and a first-class grading, packaging and cold storage facility for preparing the loblolly tree seedlings for shipment.