Anna Pauline Murray (1910 - 1985)

Born 20 Nov 1910 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Ancestors

Died 1 Jul 1985 at age 74 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

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Biography

Pauli Murray was a part of the Civil Rights Activist Movement.

Pauli Murray is Notable.

Rev. Dr. Anna Pauline "Pauli" Murray, American civil rights activist, women's rights activist, lawyer, author, and the first Black woman ordained an Episcopal priest,^[1] was born on 20 November 1910 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, a daughter of William Henry Murray, a schoolteacher, and Agnes Georgiana Fitzgerald,^[1] and a granddaughter of a former slave.^[2]

Her siblings were:

1. Grace (Murray) Gwynn (1904 - 1974)
2. Mildred Fitzgerald (Murray) Fearing (1906 - 1992)
3. William H Murray (~1908 - )
4. Raymond Robert Murray (1912 - 1985)
5. Rosetta (Murray) Stevens (1914 - 1990)

Her mother died in 1914 when Pauli was still three;^[2] the family was divided, and she was sent to live with her maternal aunt, Pauline Fitzgerald Dame, in North Carolina.^[3][4] Within three years of her mother's death, her father, sick and suffering, was committed to the Crownsville State Hospital for the Negro Insane in Maryland.^[2] He was an inmate at Crownsville on 8 September 1918 when he registered for the draft.^[5] Pauli was twelve when her father was murdered there by an employee in 1922.^[2]

At sixteen she moved to a cousin's home in New York^[6] to attend Hunter College in 1926; in New York she married William Roy Wynn at age twenty.^[7] They knew immediately the marriage was a mistake,^[2] but didn't get around to the divorce until 1949.^[8] There were no children.

Seeking a law degree, she continued her education; having been denied admission at the University of North Carolina because of her race, she received her law degree from Howard University, where she coined the term "Jane Crow" for the sometimes degrading treatment she, as the only female student, experienced there. It spurred her to become the top student.^[2]

Denied admission to Harvard for her J.S.D. (the equivalent of a Ph.D. in legal scholarship) because of her sex,^[1] she got it from Yale instead, becoming their first African-American J.S.D. recipient^[9] -- and then had trouble finding work. In 1948 she was hired by the Women's Division of the Methodist Church to research the segregation laws in America. The resulting book, States' Laws on Race and Color, was described by Thurgood Marshall as "the bible" of the landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education.^[2]

In 1961 she was appointed by President Kennedy to the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. In 1966 with Betty Friedan she co-founded the National Organization for Women.^[1]

She taught at Ghana School of Law, Benedict College, and Brandeis University. In 1973 she left a tenured position at Brandeis to enter the seminary and become the first Black female Episcopal priest in January 1977.^[2]

Today she would be classified as transgender, born and raised as female, but the term had not yet been invented, and she only very privately identified as male,^[2] in a time and culture where only a binary model of gender and sexuality was considered normal.

Dr. Pauli Murray died on 1 July 1985 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at age 74. She is buried in Cypress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.^[10] She was named an Episcopal saint in 2012.^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4} Wikipedia contributors, "Pauli Murray," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pauli_Murray&oldid=994861996 (accessed December 22, 2020).
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8} Kathryn Schulz, "The Many Lives of Pauli Murray: She was an architect of the civil-rights struggle—and the women’s movement. Why haven’t you heard of her?" The New Yorker, print edition of the April 17, 2017, issue, with the headline “Saint Pauli,” online at https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/the-many-lives-of-pauli-murray?fbclid=IwAR1WvHD-jD6PBVF4r-M25zYCM08mJdweWngDTwFMeprU4WaF02uRH5Yp5yM
3. ↑ "United States Census, 1920," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MZK2-X7K : accessed 26 May 2020), Anna P Murrey in household of C S Fitzgerald, Durham Ward 4, Durham, North Carolina, United States; citing ED 57, sheet 14A, line 16, family 293, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992), roll 1292; FHL microfilm 1,821,292.
4. ↑ "United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X3SG-9NM : accessed 18 February 2022), A Pauline Murray in household of Pauline F Dame, Durham, Durham, North Carolina, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 13, sheet 29A, line 31, family 585, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 1687; FHL microfilm 2,341,421.

   Pauline F Dame Head Female 52 North Carolina

   Marie L Jeffers Sister Female 49 North Carolina

   A Pauline Murray Niece Female 19 Maryland

5. ↑ "United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KZ83-V1V : 24 December 2021), William H Murray, 1917-1918.
6. ↑ "United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K3YV-6FS : 27 July 2019), Pauli Murray in household of Rufus Kirkpatrick, Assembly District 19, Manhattan, New York City, New York, New York, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 31-1707B, sheet 7B, line 71, family 169, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 2665.
7. ↑ "New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1940," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2CX-VSCQ : 29 November 2018), William Roy Wynn and Anna Pauline Murray, 28 Nov 1930; citing Marriage, Queens, New York, United States, New York City Municipal Archives, New York; FHL microfilm 1,905,451.
8. ↑ "Virginia, Divorce Records, 1918-1988," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVB2-Z43Z : 20 August 2018), William R Wynn and Anna Pauline Murray Wynn, 26 Mar 1949; from "Virginia, Marriage Records, 1700-1850," database and images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : 2012); citing Fairfax, Virginia, United States, certificate #1419, Virginia Department of Health, Richmond.
9. ↑ Yale College, About Pauli Murray|Pauli Murray College, paulimurray.yalecollege.yale.edu
10. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/239977036/anna-pauline-murray: accessed 08 September 2022), memorial page for The Reverend Doctor Anna Pauline “Pauli” Murray (20 Nov 1910–1 Jul 1985), Find A Grave: Memorial #239977036, citing Cypress Hills Cemetery, Brooklyn, Kings County (Brooklyn), New York, USA; Maintained by Tyndareas (contributor 46524102)

• She was profiled in a story by Kenya Downs, "The 'Black, Queer, Feminist' Legal Trailblazer You've Never Heard Of," in 'Code Switch,' on National Public Radio (19 Feb 2015), citing Brittney Cooper's, "Black, queer, feminist, erased from history: Meet the most important legal scholar you've likely never heard of: Ruth Bader Ginsburg is this Supreme Court's liberal hero, but her work sits on the shoulders of Dr. Pauli Murray," in Salon (18 Feb 2015).

• Patricia Bell-Scott, “The Firebrand and the First Lady” (Knopf)
• Rosalind Rosenberg, “Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray” (Oxford)
• Pauli Murray, “Song in a Weary Throat”
• Maryland Women's Hall of Fame, 1990. https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/educ/exhibits/womenshallfame/html/murray.html