[Durham INC] Pauli Murray discussion on Aug 12 -- Not as simple as black and white (Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

Not as simple as black and white
By Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan, Herald-Sun, 9 Aug 2009 

Pauli Murray's life story can be an example for many facets of our community -- white, African-American, women, men, the faithful. The woman who grew up in Durham and affected society well beyond it is the subject of a local project to educate people about her legacy. She was a poet, a lawyer, civil rights and women's rights activist, and a priest. 

Murray's heritage was white, black and Native American. She became the first female African-American to be ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. And her 1956 family history, "Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family" discussed issues of identity that are uncomfortable for some even today. 

A public art project in Durham this past February featuring murals of Murray was the catalyst for The Pauli Murray Project. Fourteen colorful murals representing Murray were painted at six sites by "Face Up: Telling Stories of Community Life," sponsored by the Duke Center for Documentary Studies. 

Barbara Lau, director of the Pauli Murray Project, said there are a lot of people in Durham who don't know about Murray. "We want to introduce her and her ideas to Durham," she said. 

The project is part of the Duke Human Rights Center at the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, and aims to use Murray's legacy to explore Durham history and promote reconciliation and dialogue that may lay the foundation of the proposed Durham History Museum. 

Lau said they hope the project will spark a grassroots effort to read and discuss "Proud Shoes." The Durham County Library has a book club pack of "Proud Shoes," providing several copies to check out at once, plus a reading guide. A public discussion will be held Wednesday night at St. Joseph's Episcopal Church, facilitated by Courtney Reid-Eaton and the Rev. Brooks Graebner, who both serve on the steering committee. 

Murray's family history is also local Episcopalian history, said Graebner, rector of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Hillsborough. 

Murray's great-grandmother Cornelia Fitzgerald was born into slavery in Orange County to her mother, Harriet, and a white slave-owning father in the Smith family. As a child, she was brought to church by the woman who owned her -- and was also her aunt -- at The Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill. 

Murray discussed her ancestry in "Proud Shoes," which has been reprinted multiple times. Cornelia Fitzgerald married a biracial schoolteacher in Orange County who was a Union veteran that came South during Reconstruction to teach. The couple lived in Hillsborough at first, attending St. Matthew's Episcopal and baptizing their children there, including Pauline Fitzgerald Dame. Dame was Murray's aunt and a founding member of St. Titus Episcopal Church in Durham. Dame also raised Murray after her parents died. 

After Murray was ordained an Episcopal priest, she celebrated Eucharist at The Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill. July 1, the date of her death in 1985, is being considered as a feast day in the Episcopal Church. Proposed at the General Convention this summer, it was moved to committee for a process that could take a few years to complete. 

Graebner, diocese historiographer, said Murray's nomination as a saint also helps the predominantly white Episcopal Church to examine its own racial history and grapple with its complicity in slavery. The balcony at St. Matthew's was once the slave section. 

After the Civil War, St. Titus was founded by African-Americans in Durham and remains the only predominantly African-American Episcopal congregation in the area, Graebner said. 

"It is important for us to be talking about this -- that we remember what this racial history is. 'Proud Shoes' opens very interesting windows into that complex, painful history," he said. 

For Reid-Eaton, a member of St. Joseph's, which is hosting the book discussion Wednesday, "Proud Shoes" showed her that Murray was a visionary thinker to talk about race and incendiary issues in the 1950s. 

"She strove to be a fully integrated human being, proud of all her identities -- African-American and part white, Irish and Native American," Reid-Eaton said. She said that like Murray, she too is a person of mixed heritage as most African-Americans are. Her husband is white, and it is important to them to raise their children in a world where they can embrace all that they are. 

"People tend to be pretty single-minded about race. I think it's hard for people to accept that people can be both black and white, not have to choose one or the other. For example, our president," she said. She said that while the term African-American is used to describe black people, but not all black people are African-American. Her own ancestry is Caribbean. 

"Race is very complicated and we try to simplify that, making things black and white," Reid-Eaton said. "Pauli Murray is someone who was talking like this, like I'm talking now, in 1956. That's amazing. Her writings have been an incredible gift to me." 

To join the Pauli Murray Project mailing list, e-mail https://lists.duke.edu/sympa/subscribe/paulimurrayproject. 

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GO & DO

Discussion of Pauli Murray's 1956 family history, "Proud Shoes: The Story of An American Family"

7 p.m. Wednesday
St. Joseph's Episcopal Church
1902 W. Main Street, Durham 

For more information, e-mail reideatn at duke.edu or stmattclergy at embarqmail.com

****

Major events in the life of Pauli Murray: 

Nov. 20, 1910: Pauli Murray was born in Baltimore to Agnes Fitzgerald and William Murray. 

1914: Moves to Durham to live with her aunt, Pauline Fitzgerald Dame. 

1926: Graduates from Hillside High at the head of her class. 

1933: She graduates from Hunter College and goes to work for the Works Project Administration, Workers Defense League and as a teacher in the NYC Remedial Reading Project. 

1938: She attempts to gain admission as a graduate student at UNC Chapel Hill. The NAACP supported her initially but decides not to pursue the case because of her New York resident status. 

1940: Arrested for protesting bus segregation in Virginia while traveling to try to raise money to pay for legal fees for Odell Waller, a black sharecropper who was accused of murder and later executed. 

1941: While a student at Howard Law School, encounters overt sex discrimination from faculty and students. Participates in restaurant sit-ins. 

1943: Murray writes "Negroes are Fed Up" for Common Sense and an article about the Harlem race riot in the socialist newspaper New York Call. Her poem "Dark Testament" is published. 

June 1944: Graduates from Howard Law School first in her class (and the only female). She applies for admission to Harvard Law School but is rejected because of her gender despite having President Roosevelt write a letter on her behalf. She enrolls at University of California's Boalt Hall Law School. 

1945: Master of law degree, University of California, Berkeley. Her thesis was "The Right to Equal Opportunity in Employment." 

1945: Her aunt Pauline Fitzgerald Dame retires after working as a teacher in Durham schools for 60 years. 

1947: Named "Woman of the Year" by Mademoiselle magazine. 

1950: Only female hired by the New York firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton, and Garrison. 

1951: Murray writes the States' Laws on Race and Color for the Women's Division of the Methodist Church, used for Brown v. Board of Education and other civil rights cases. 

1952: Murray was rejected for a position at Cornell University because the people who supplied her references -- Eleanor Roosevelt, Thurgood Marshall and Phillip Randolph -- were considered to be too radical. 

1956: "Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family," is published. 

1961: Appointed to the President's Commission on the Status of Women Committee on Civil and Political rights. 

1964: Co-authors "Jane Crow and the Law: Sex discrimination and Title VII," in which she draws parallels between sex-based discrimination with Jim Crow laws. 

1965: First African American to receive a J.S.D. from Yale. Her dissertation was "Roots of the Racial Crisis: Prologue to Policy." Serves as counsel in White v. Crook, which successfully challenged the use of sex and race discrimination in jury selection. 

1966: One of 30 founding members of the National Organization for Women. 

1967: Vice president of Benedict College in Columbia, S.C. 

1968-1973: Professor of Law and Politics at Brandeis University. 

1977: Murray becomes the first African-American female priest to be ordained by the Episcopal Church. 

July 1, 1985: Dies of cancer in Pittsburgh. 

1987: Her autobiography "Song in a Weary Throat: An American Pilgrimage" is published and later republished as "Pauli Murray: The Autobiography of a Black Activist, Feminist Lawyer, and Poet." 

2009: Pauli Murray Project begins in Durham. 

Source: Pauli Murray Project