Politics & Law

Pauli Murray

Born November 20, 1910 · Baltimore, Maryland · Joined the Ancestors July 1, 1985

A legal theorist whose arguments laid the groundwork for both Brown v. Board of Education and the fight against sex discrimination — Pauli Murray was decades ahead of every movement they touched.

Known For

Legal theory behind Brown v. Board

First

First Black woman ordained as Episcopal priest

Legacy

Ruth Bader Ginsburg credited Murray's work

Anna Pauline Murray was born in Baltimore and raised in Durham, North Carolina by maternal grandparents. A brilliant student, Murray was denied admission to the University of North Carolina because of race and Harvard Law School because of sex.

Undeterred, Murray developed legal arguments challenging both racial and sex-based discrimination that proved foundational. Their 1950 book "States' Laws on Race and Color" was called by Thurgood Marshall "the Bible" of the civil rights legal strategy. Their legal framework on sex discrimination was later adopted by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in landmark Supreme Court cases.

Murray co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) alongside Betty Friedan and in 1977 became the first African American woman ordained as an Episcopal priest. A poet, activist, lawyer, and priest, Murray lived at the intersection of every major liberation movement of the 20th century.