Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray was a poet, writer, activist, lawyer, and Episcopal priest. She is regarded as one of the most important social justice advocates of the twentieth century. She fought tirelessly for civil rights, women’s rights, and gender equality.
Murray was born November 20, 1910, in Baltimore, Maryland and grew up in Durham, North Carolina. She graduated high school at 15 and moved to New York City to attend Hunter College, where she received a B.A. in English Literature in 1933.
In 1938, Murray applied to the all-white University of North Carolina but was rejected. Her case received national publicity and she gained the friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt.
Two years later, Murray and a friend were arrested for sitting in the whites-only section on a Virginia bus. This incident led to her decision to become a civil rights lawyer, and she enrolled in the Howard University law program. She graduated in the top of her class in 1944. She was then awarded a prestigious fellowship at Harvard University, but after the award was announced, Harvard Law School rejected her because of her gender.
Murray later earned a master’s in law at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1965, she became the first African American to receive a Doctor of Juridical Science degree from Yale Law School.
Murray’s 1950 book, States’ Laws on Race and Color was distributed to law libraries, universities, and human-rights organizations. It exposed the extent and absurdity of segregation and was important to the Supreme Court case Brown vs. Board of Education.
In 1966, Murray joined Betty Friedan and others to found the National Organization for Women (NOW) but later relinquished a leading role, believing the issues of Black and working-class women were not adequately addressed by the organization.
She became the first Black woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1977.
Murray died of cancer on July 1, 1985.
