For the second weekend in a row, I was unexpectedly inspired
and amazed. I’m embarrassed to admit that
one of the most influential, intelligent, righteous, and multi-faceted people
in recent history grew up just miles from our home in Durham and I didn’t even
know the name. I would wager that 95% of
you reading this haven’t either. I
encourage you to read to the end of this blog to get the full feel for this amazing
person.
Being another beautiful day with a cloudless Carolina blue
sky, Monette had the great idea to go to a ceremony by the National Park
Service and the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice as they
named the Pauli Murray home a National Historic Landmark. It was a wonderfully moving and motivational
ceremony that left me filled with many emotions. So, who exactly was Pauli Murray? That is a much more complex question than you
can possibly imagine. I’m not going to
be able to do her justice in a short blog, but I’d like to share with you some
of what I learned today because I think her mission is still a vitally
important one. I’m not going to list her
accomplishments in chronological order in an effort to show why she deserved to
be honored simply for her work alone, but then I’ll follow that up by also showing
what she had to overcome just to get there. Much of the following and more can be found at
http://paulimurrayproject.org/.
Even ignoring the
background story for now, Pauli attained levels in every aspect of her life
that most people can’t even dream about.
She earned her law degree as top in her class. Her masters thesis, titled The Right to Equal Opportunity in Employment,
was instrumental in the civil rights movement.
How many people can claim that?
She also was a renowned author, including the books Proud Shoes and States’ Laws
on Race and Color, the latter of which was described as the Bible for civil
rights lawyers by none other than Thurgood Marshall for such cases as Brown vs.
the Board of Education among others. She
gained the attention of influential leaders and became an advisor to Roosevelt
as well as John F. Kennedy, who appointed her to his Committee on Civil and
Political Rights. In addition, she took
up poetry. Not surprisingly, she was
highly successful here, as well, including the influential poem Dark Testament. Let’s continue; she was one of the founding
members of the National Organization of Women (NOW). She Co-authored the groundbreaking US Civil
Rights Act “Jane Crow and the Law: Sex Discrimination and Title VII”. And, the list goes on, but I’ll mention just one
more. As if all of this wasn’t enough
already, she became a priest in the Episcopal Church … and ended up being named
to Episcopal Sainthood in 2012!
Pretty incredible, right?
She obviously deserves recognition and honors for all of that
alone. But, I’ve purposely left out a
major part of the story. You’ve probably
already caught onto the fact that she was a woman excelling in an era when they
were routinely discriminated against and thought of as inferior. On top of that, though, I haven’t yet
mentioned the fact that she was black.
And, oh yeah, she was also a lesbian. Now, imagine someone having to overcome that
immense amount of stigma to reach the levels that she did – and yet we don’t
even recognize her name. So, now, let me
offer a little more detail about how she kept pursuing her goals and striving
for equality for all.
I’ll keep it brief and just hit the highlights. After graduating from high school in Durham,
she tried to pay her way through Hunter College in NY, but the stock market
crash caused her to lose employment and, thus, leave her studies for the time
being. During this time frame she
published several poems and articles as well as her first novel, Angel of the Desert. She applied to attend school at the University
of North Carolina, but was denied because of her ethnicity. It was during this time that she started a
campaign of equality around this denial, including a written letter to Franklin
D. Roosevelt that caught the attention of the first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt,
which led to a life-long friendship.
Like Rosa Parks, she was directly involved in ending segregation on
public transport having been arrested on a segregated bus in Virginia. Then, she went to Howard University and
helped form the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), for pacifist protests. She was the only female in her class, and
graduated top in said class as previously mentioned. This typically came with a chance to attend
Harvard Law School, which she wanted to do, but was again denied – this time
because of her gender. So, she went west
to the University of California, Berkeley.
It was here where she published her famous thesis.
Her road would still be filled with roadblocks and a series
of ‘firsts’. She lost a post at Cornell
University due to McCarthyism amazingly because her references, Eleanor
Roosevelt, Thurgood Marshall, and Philip Randolph were thought to be too
radical! Her gender identity and sexual
orientation also played a role in her life with the lack of understanding and
stigmatization of the times, even going so far as Pauli undergoing
psychological help and hormone therapy. Due
to this, she would change her name from Pauline to the more gender neutral
Pauli. However, she continued with her amazing
accomplishments and fighting for equality for all, saying that it bothered her
that a lot of people said they were fighting for ‘equality’ while still
discriminating against certain groups. She
was still not done as she went on to be the first African-American to earn a
J.S.D. from Yale in the same year that she served on council that successfully
challenged the use of sex and race discrimination in jury selection. Finally, she even made history when she went
into the priesthood as she was another 'first', this time the first African American woman to become a
priest, after entering the seminary before the Episcopal church even approved
women as candidates for ordination! And
we all now know how that turned out.
At every turn, Pauli Murray had to fight for her right to
pursue her dreams. And, at every turn,
she not only succeeded, but fought for others to be able to follow in her
footsteps without having to go through the anguish that she did.
The obvious was brought up in that, after making such great
gains in this area over the years we have taken a bit of a step back of late. However, with recognitions like the Pauli
Murray home, which also happens to be the first landmark focused on women’s and LGBTQ
history, hopefully we’ll get back on the right track. And, hopefully, if you’ve continued to read,
you’ve gained an appreciation for someone whose name should be remembered and admired. I know I have.
“True community is
based upon equality, mutuality, and reciprocity. It affirms the richness of individual
diversity as well as the common human ties that bind us together.”
– Pauli Murray
– Pauli Murray
No comments:
Post a Comment