Celebrating Black History Month | Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray
“Hope is a song in a weary throat.”
- Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray
As a part of Black History Month, we're highlighting Black LGBTQ+ Faith Leaders from throughout Black history, taking a look at the contributions they have made for the church and outside of the walls of the church. This week, we're celebrating and highlighting the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, who was the first Black woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest and American civil rights activist who was known as a “typewriter activist”.
Pauli Murray was a civil rights activist, writer, lawyer, Episcopalian priest, and a poet. Pauli was born in 1910 in Baltimore, Maryland, but grew up with extended family in Durham, North Carolina, after their* mother passed away and their father was in the state hospital. After excelling in school and working a multitude of jobs to keep afloat, Pauli joined the civil rights movement. It was then that they attempted to seek additional education at the University of North Carolina, which was a whites-only school at the time. Pauli’s application to the school received national media recognition which led to a friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt.
During Easter weekend in 1940, Pauli was arrested for not giving up their seat while traveling on a Greyhound bus - fifteen years before Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat.
Murray then attended Howard University School of Law to become a civil rights lawyer. During this time, Pauli created the term, “Jane Crow” to include the experiences of oppression that Black women face. Pauli graduated top of their class and received a fellowship to attend Harvard Law School. However, the school rejected Pauli due to the fact that only men were accepted at that time. After study in California, Murray passed the bar in 1945 but had a hard time getting a job until Women’s Division of the Christian Service Board of Missions of the Methodist Church hired them to compile a book of state laws on “Race and Color”, which put all of the statutes that related to racial segregation in 1951, work that Thurgood Marshall considered “the bible” of the civil rights movement.
Murray then went to Ghana to teach at the Ghana School of Law. In that year they co-authored, “The Constitution and Government of Ghana.” Upon their return to the United States, they went to Yale Law School and were appointed by President John F. Kennedy to work on the Committee on Civil and Political Rights. Pauli went on to earn tenure at Brandeis University as a law professor, where they introduced African American studies and women’s studies at the school.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg credited Pauli Murray in her work on Reed vs. Reed because Justice Ginsburg had relied on the analysis that Pauli had developed. Ginsburg later remarked that, “We were not inventing something new. We were saying the same things Pauli had said years earlier when society was not prepared to listen.” This supports the ongoing narrative that Pauli was always ahead of their time.
When Pauli Murray’s long term partner passed away, Pauli left teaching and went to a seminary of the Episcopal Church. Upon their graduation, they became the first African American woman in the US to be ordained as an Episcopalian priest. Pauli served communion for the first time at the very altar where their grandmother was baptized as an enslaved person. Pauli remained in ministry until their death in 1985.
After Pauli’s death, it was discovered in their unpublished writings that Pauli had struggled with their understanding of gender. Pauli had written to numerous doctors trying to obtain gender-affirming medical treatments, namely testosterone. However, Pauli was denied these treatments.
Pauli Murray may not be with us anymore, but their work set forth the framework that allowed the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to win a Supreme Court case prohibiting discrimination against lesbian, gay, and transgender people in 2020. This win, 35 years after Pauli’s death, continued a theme for Pauli Murray’s life: laying the framework for others to be able to fight for their rights, their freedom.
There is no way we could cover all of the things that Pauli did in their lifetime. However, we are thankful for their voice and work, and we celebrate all of who they are today!
**There is no agreed upon pronoun usage for Pauli Murray. We have decided to use the gender neutral “they/them” throughout this article to honor Pauli's personal journey with gender wherein they referred to themself as as a “he/she personality”. We still refer to Pauli as a woman because they self-described as such. You can read the article that the Pauli Murray Center has about Pauli Murray and gender, here.
