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Pauli Murray: Autobiography Black Activist Feminist Lawyer

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An amazing woman and a fine writer, Ms. Murray brings our social history to life by looking at her own. Ms. Murray moved through the century finding new ways to contribute to each phase: from writing in Harlem in the 30's to helping to found N.O.W in the 60's. Denied admission to UNC in her youth because of her race, she said her first mass at a chapel there three decades later. Her intelligence and grasp of social issues is evident in her writing, as is her love of family, her strong faith and her pride in her race. If I am forced to a simple description, I can say this book is like if the Delaney Sisters were social activists. I have given away several copies of this book, as well as her history of her remarkable family. (PROUD SHOES, now back in print so grab it while you can.) The house where she grew up in Durham, N.C. still stands, very near my own home, and her many relatives continue to tell stories about Ms. Murray with pride.

Pauli Murray (1910-1985)is regarded as "one of the least discussed figures in the history of twentieth-century African American women's activism." She was a highly regarded Feminist, who called attention to the plight of women, especially the colored and working poor.

Her gendered perspective led her to become a civil rights activist, and an advocate for underrepresented working people in her capacity as both lawyer and a writer.

"One person plus one typewriter constitutes a movement," she declared as she took up her challenge for the weak and down trodden in our society.

Far sighted enough, She never blamed the poor for their poverty, a fashionable practice in current society.

Murray's parents were educated working people. Her father was a school teacher in Baltimore and her mother a graduate of Hampton training School for Nurses.

It was at Law School where she first became aware of "Jane Crow,"-- a overt form of discrimination against women in society.

First she observed that there were only two female students in her class at the time-- "not more than two or three women" were enrolled, she said.

On the professional faculty, the only woman was the registrar.

"Jane Crow" even expressed itself in class through what she called the "free wheeling classroom style of informal discussion" which "allowed the men's deeper voices to obliterate [her] lighter voice."

Her sex similarly deprived her of membership in her university's well-known legal fraternity.

How would she characterize her general reaction to "Jane Crow"? She was at once disheartened and motivated by her rejection.

This is a great book. I recommend it highly!