Greenburgh Public Library Blog

Learn About the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray at GPL

The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray should be a household name. They were an activist, feminist, lawyer, priest, poet, and so ahead of their time. Pauli Murray's influence shifted the movement for justice and is still felt today. They worked to end segregation on public transport and in March 1940, they were arrested and imprisoned for refusing to sit at the back of a bus in Richmond, Virginia.

Murray was first in her class at Howard Law School and the only woman. While they were there, they participated in protests to desegregate public facilities and formed the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) with Bayard Rustin, James Farmer, and George Houser. They were denied admission at Harvard because of their gender, so they finished their post-graduate work at UC Berkeley School of Law. They wrote what's known as the “bible” of civil rights work called States’ Laws on Race and Color. Murray's work inspired the law team that successfully argued Brown v. Board of Education. They co-wrote a law-review article used by Ruth Bader Ginsburg to convince the Supreme Court that the Equal Protection Clause applies to women. They were sainted by the Episcopal Church. 

Find books by and about Dr. Rev. Pauli Murray in our catalog and eLlibrary. Need help? Contact us 914-721-8225

Books to Check Out!

Pauli Murray: The Life of a Pioneering Feminist & Civil Rights Activist

by Rosita Stevens-Holsey and Terry Catasaus Jennings

"Pauli Murray was brilliant, outspoken, and committed to achieving dignity and equality for all under the law. Rising from poverty, Murray challenged pervasive race and sex discrimination and helped launch the two most important movements of the Twentieth Century: civil rights and women's rights. This new biography capsulizes important events and accomplishments of an iconoclast who would not take 'No' for an answer. Young readers will be drawn to the story of Pauli's bravery and pivotal role in history." -- Christian F. Nunes, President, National Organization for Women "This is a compelling biography of an 'unsung force'- an inspiring and transformative figure who broke barriers pivotal to both the civil rights and women's movements."--Horn Book Magazine 

Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray by Rosalind Rosenberg

Throughout her prodigious life, activist and lawyer Pauli Murray systematically fought against all arbitrary distinctions in society, channeling her outrage at the discrimination she faced to make America a more democratic country. In this definitive biography, Rosalind Rosenberg offers a poignant portrait of a figure who played pivotal roles in both the modern civil rights and women's movements. A mixed-race orphan, Murray grew up in segregated North Carolina before escaping to New York, where she attended Hunter College and became a labor activist in the 1930s. She went on to graduate first in her class at Howard Law School, only to be rejected for graduate study again at Harvard University this time on account of her sex. Undaunted, Murray forged a singular career in the law. In the 1950s, her legal scholarship helped Thurgood Marshall challenge segregation head-on in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case. 

 

 

 

The Firebrand and the First Lady by Patricia Bell-Scott

Pauli Murray first saw Eleanor Roosevelt in 1933, at the height of the Depression, at a government-sponsored, two-hundred-acre camp for unemployed women where Murray was living, something the first lady had pushed her husband to set up in her effort to do what she could for working women and the poor. The first lady appeared one day unannounced, behind the wheel of her car, her secretary and a Secret Service agent her passengers. To Murray, then aged twenty-three, Roosevelt's self-assurance was a symbol of women's independence, a symbol that endured throughout Murray's life.  Five years later, Pauli Murray, a twenty-eight-year-old aspiring writer, wrote a letter to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt protesting racial segregation in the South. The president's staff forwarded Murray's letter to the federal Office of Education. The first lady wrote back. So began a friendship. Available through Libby - Audiobook & Ebook

 

 

 

 

Song in a Weary Throat by Pauli Murray; Patricia Bell-Scott (Introduction by)

THE STORY BEHIND THE DOCUMENTARY MY NAME IS PAULI MURRAY A prophetic memoir by the activist who "articulated the intellectual foundations" (The New Yorker) of the civil rights and women's rights movements. First published posthumously in 1987, Pauli Murray's Song in a Weary Throat was critically lauded, winning the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and the Lillian Smith Book Award among other distinctions. Yet Murray's name and extraordinary influence receded from view in the intervening years; now they are once again entering the public discourse. At last, with the republication of this "beautifully crafted" memoir, Song in a Weary Throat takes its rightful place among the great civil rights autobiographies of the twentieth century. 

Register for this Program: An Unbounded Spirit: Pauli Murray's Invitation

Tuesday, March 22, 7 PM

Join us to learn about the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, a groundbreaking twentieth-century human rights activist, legal scholar, feminist, poet, Episcopal priest, labor organizer, and multiracial Black, LGBTQ+ community member. A staff member of the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice will teach us about the ways that race, class, gender, and sexuality influenced the Rev. Dr. Murray’s life and how all of us can learn from their legacy today.

My Name Is Pauli Murray Documentary