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<\/a>As rector of St. Peter\u2019s Church in Oxford in the autumn of 1962, Gray called for calm as violence broke out in response to the court-ordered integration of the University of Mississippi in that city. Gray had been a chaplain on campus until 1961 and was known to students. According to Episcopal archives, Gray held onto the statue of a Confederate soldier near the main administrative building on campus and implored people not to riot.<\/p>\nIn the pulpit of St. Peter\u2019s, Gray denounced racism.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe seeds of anger and hatred, bitterness and prejudice, are already widely sown, and as Christians, we need to do our utmost to uproot and cast them out,\u201d Gray said in a sermon on Sept. 30, 1962, the day before James Meredith enrolled as the first black student, escorted by federal marshals.<\/p>\n
A week later, Gray said in his sermon that all people in Mississippi should face up to their guilt in the violence that killed two people.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou and I didn\u2019t go out there and throw the bricks and the bottles. You and I didn\u2019t go out there and fire the guns,\u201d Gray said. \u201cYet you and I, along with every other Mississippian, are responsible in one degree or another for what happened. We are responsible for the moral and political climate in our state which made such a tragedy possible\u2026. The decent, respectable and responsible people of Mississippi have failed when events like those of last Sunday night can take place within our state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gray was the seventh bishop of Mississippi, serving from 1974 to 1993. His father, the Rt. Rev. Duncan Gray Sr., had been the fifth bishop, and one of his sons, the Rt. Rev. Duncan Gray III, was the ninth.<\/p>\n
From 1991 to 1997, Duncan Gray Jr. was chancellor of University of the South, an Episcopal-run school in Sewanee, Tennessee. He was the subject of a 1997 book, \u201cAnd Also With You: Duncan Gray and the American Dilemma,\u201d written by the Rev. Will Campbell.<\/p>\n
Lloyd Gray, a former editor of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, said his father was a humble man who didn\u2019t seek attention for his work on civil rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just did what he thought a priest of the church ought to be doing,\u201d Lloyd Gray said.<\/p>\n
Gray\u2019s wife, Ruth, died in 2011. Survivors include four children: the Rt. Rev. Duncan Gray III of New Orleans; Anne Finley of Adams, Tennessee; Catherine Clark of Nashville, Tennessee; and Lloyd Gray of Meridian, Mississippi; 11 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
http:\/\/www.clarionledger.com\/story\/news\/local\/2016\/07\/15\/retired-miss-episcopal-bishop-duncan-gray-jr-dies\/87164428\/ Retired Miss. Episcopal Bishop Duncan Gray Jr. dies Emily Wagster Pettus 9:27 p.m. CDT July 15, 2016 The Rt. Rev. Duncan Montgomery Gray Jr., a civil-rights advocate and retired bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi, died Friday. He was 89. Gray died at his home in Jackson after having been in hospice care, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-textcache","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andonewasapriest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andonewasapriest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andonewasapriest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andonewasapriest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andonewasapriest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/andonewasapriest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218,"href":"https:\/\/andonewasapriest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions\/218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andonewasapriest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andonewasapriest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andonewasapriest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>As rector of St. Peter\u2019s Church in Oxford in the autumn of 1962, Gray called for calm as violence broke out in response to the court-ordered integration of the University of Mississippi in that city. Gray had been a chaplain on campus until 1961 and was known to students. According to Episcopal archives, Gray held onto the statue of a Confederate soldier near the main administrative building on campus and implored people not to riot.<\/p>\n