Pauli Murray was born Anna Pauline Murray, on November 20, 1910. After the death of parents, she lived with her Aunt in Durham, North Carolina, at the home of her maternal grandparents.
By the age of five, she taught herself to read and when she graduated, at fifteen, she was the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, the president of the literary society, class secretary, a member of the debate club, the top student, and a forward on the basketball team.
Murray was an activist, writer, poet, legal theorist, and Episcopal priest. She was friends with
#LangstonHughes, joined# JamesBaldwin at the MacDowell Colony the first year it admitted African-Americans, maintained a twenty-three-year friendship with
#EleanorRoosevelt, and helped
#BettyFriedan found the National Organization for Women.
She articulated the intellectual foundations of two of the most important social-justice movements of the twentieth century: first, when she made her argument for overturning Plessy, and, late...