Justice & Dignity: Pauli Murray

From North Carolina-

As a Chapel Hill resident, it always astounds me when I come across someone who is unfamiliar with Anna Pauline Murray (also known as Pauli Murray). We are, after all, a professed and often recognized community of educated, social justice activists with a proclivity for open discourse and legacy pride.

Murray, great-granddaughter of an enslaved woman and the family that owned her, was raised by her grandparents in neighboring Durham. She celebrated her first Eucharist at the local Chapel of the Cross church and was famously denied admission to the UNC School of Law because she was African American. In a letter to then UNC president, Frank Graham, Murray argued that any hesitation about admitting African Americans should be answered by “frank, open discussion” and a “give-and-take process where prejudices are openly aired and accounted for, where correct interpretations are made and where enlightenment is gained in an atmosphere of mutual co-operation and respect.” Early on in her life Murray demonstrated an interest in social justice and open dialogue that became a life-long commitment to advocacy.

More here-

https://chapelboro.com/town-square/justice-dignity-pauli-murray

Six Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement

From History-

The writings of The Rev. Dr. Anna Pauline “Pauli” Murray were a cornerstone of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the 1954 Supreme Court case that ended school segregation, but the lawyer, Episcopal priest, pioneering civil rights activist and co-founder of the National Organization for Women wouldn’t be made aware of that extraordinary accomplishment until a decade after the fact.

In 1944, Murray was the only woman enrolled at Howard Law School—and at the top of her class. While discussing Jim Crow laws, Murray had an idea. Why not challenge the “separate” in “separate but equal” legal doctrine, (Plessy v. Ferguson) and argue that segregation was unconstitutional? This theory became the basis of her 1950 book, States’ Laws on Race and Color, which NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall called the “bible” of Brown v. Board of Education.

More here-

http://www.history.com/news/six-unsung-heroines-of-the-civil-rights-movement

Pauli Murray's 'Song of Hope'

From Philadelphia-

Hope is a song in a weary throat.

Give me a song of hope

And a world where I can sing it.

Give me a song of faith

And a people to believe in it.

Give me a song of kindliness

And a country where I can live it.

Give me a song of hope and love

And a brown girl’s heart

to hear it.

This verse is from the poem “Dark Testament” by the Rev. Dr. Anna Pauline “Pauli” Murray, a writer, scholar, Episcopal priest and civil rights warrior who spent her extraordinary life challenging barriers and systems of discrimination in all forms. I recently had the joy of being the first overnight guest at the new Pauli Murray College at Yale University after the dedication of the new residential college named in her honor. She would be so pleased!

More here-

http://www.phillytrib.com/commentary/pauli-murray-s-song-of-hope/article_9108b848-7c68-5978-b68e-78f62738ddbe.html

The Life of Pauli Murray: An Interview with Rosalind Rosenberg

From African American Intellectual History Society-

In today’s post, Alyssa Collins, PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Virginia, interviews Rosalind Rosenberg on her new book Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray, which was recently published by Oxford University Press. Dr. Rosalind Rosenberg is Professor Emerita of History at Barnard College, where she joined the faculty in 1984. Professor Rosenberg specializes in American history with a focus on women’s, social, and legal history. Related to her most recent book, she is the author of “Conjunctions: Race and Gender in the Work of Pauli Murray” in the Journal of Women’s History (2002), Divided Lives: American Women in the 20th Century (1992), and “Pauli Murray and the Killing of Jane Crow” in Forgotten Heroes From America’s Past (1998) amongst many other publications. Professor Rosenberg is also a member of the Executive Board of the Society of American Historians.


More here-


http://www.aaihs.org/the-life-of-pauli-murray-an-interview-with-rosalind-rosenberg/

THE MANY LIVES OF PAULI MURRAY

From The New Yorker-

In classic Murray fashion, the position she sought was officially unavailable to her: the Episcopal Church did not ordain women. For once, though, Murray’s timing was perfect. While she was in divinity school, the Church’s General Convention voted to change that policy, effective January 1, 1977—three weeks after she would complete her course work. On January 8th, in a ceremony in the National Cathedral, Murray became the first African-American woman to be vested as an Episcopal priest. A month later, she administered her first Eucharist at the Chapel of the Cross—the little church in North Carolina where, more than a century earlier, a priest had baptized her grandmother Cornelia, then still a baby, and still a slave.

It was the last of Murray’s many firsts. She was by then nearing seventy, just a few years from the mandatory retirement age for Episcopal priests. Never having received a permanent call, she took a few part-time positions and did a smattering of supply preaching, for twenty-five dollars a sermon. She held four advanced degrees, had friends on the Supreme Court and in the White House, had spent six decades sharing her life and mind with some of the nation’s most powerful individuals and institutions. Yet she died as she lived, a stone’s throw from penury.

More here-

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/the-many-lives-of-pauli-murray