Pauli Murray Research Guide

Introduction 

Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray was an activist, lawyer, priest, teacher, and community leader. They grew up in and have familial ties to the West End, a historically Black community in Durham. Murray is known for a variety of achievements. She was appointed by President John F. Kennedy to serve on the President’s Commission on the Status of Women Committee (PCSW) on Civil and Political Rights. She was also the first Black person to receive a J.S.D from Yale University, the only non-man in their class at Howard University School of Law, and the first Black person perceived as a woman to be ordained an Episcopal priest. She was close friends with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Black Wall Street and Civil Rights and Black Activism guides also include works by and about Pauli Murray.  

A Note on Pronouns

As a notable LGBTQ+ icon, it is almost impossible to discuss Pauli Murray without also bringing up their sexuality and gender identity. It is documented that in the early years of their life, Murray tried to seek gender-affirming medical treatment, such as an attempt to take testosterone, but was denied. It also documented that in the later years of Murray’s life, she self-identified as a woman. To account for a contemporary understanding of gender while simultaneously honoring Murray’s self-identification of their gender, it is important to follow the lead of the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice regarding Murray’s pronouns. PMC writes:

“Currently, the Pauli Murray Center chooses to use he/him and they/them pronouns when discussing Pauli Murray’s early life and she/her/hers when discussing Dr. Murray’s later years. When discussing Pauli Murray in general, we interchangeably use she/her/hers, he/him/his, and they/them/theirs pronouns, or we refer to Pauli Murray by their name and title(s).”

Resources About Murray

• Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women by Brittany C. Cooper (2017).
• Defying Dixie:  The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950 by Glenda E. Gilmore (2008), Chapters 5-6 and 8-9.
• The Dream is Freedom: Pauli Murray and American Democratic Faith by Sarah Azaransky (2011). 
• “Experimentation on the Male Side”: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in Pauli Murray’s Quest for Love and Identity, 1910-1960 by Doreen Marie Drury (2000).
• The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship : Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice by Patricia Bell-Scott (2016). 
• Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray by Rosalind Rosenberg (2017).
• Pauli Murray and Caroline Ware:  Forty Years of Letters in Black and White edited by Anne Firor Scott (2006).
• Pauli Murray: A Personal and Political Life by Troy R. Saxby (2020).
• Standing Tall in Proud Shoes: Pauli Murray’s Life and Legacy – panel discussion on DVD (2009).
• Interview with Pauli Murray by Genna Rae McNeil, 13 February 1976, Southern Oral History Program, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Publications Written by Murray

• Dark Testament, and Other Poems by Pauli Murray (1970).
• Pauli Murray: the Autobiography of a Black Activist, Feminist, Lawyer, Priest, and Poet by Pauli Murray (1989).
• Pauli Murray:  Selected Sermons and Writings by Pauli Murray with selections and an introduction by Anthony B. Pinn (2006).
• Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family by Pauli Murray (1956).
• Song in a Weary Throat: An American Pilgrimage by Pauli Murray (1986).
• States’ Laws on Race and Color, and Appendices: Containing International Documents, Federal Laws and Regulations, Local Ordinances and Charts by Pauli Murray (1950).

This page was originally created by Sophia Chimbanda, Hart Leadership Fellow at Duke University, in Spring 2024. Corrections or additions may have been made by NCC staff.