[Durham INC] -Support for Murray Marker-

Tue Oct 26 07:45:14 EDT 2010

To Whom it May Concern:

I am writing to express my support for the creation, as well as the placing, of a marker, recognizing the talent, determination, efforts and accomplishments of longtime Durham Resident, Pauli Murray.

Ms. Murray's life uniquely represents our ever-present efforts to move from under the shadow of slavery, into a free and integrated society.

Whether it be her ability to reconcile the views of the oppressed with the oppressor (having been the creation of intimate relations between a slave owner and that of a slave); challenging the admissions process at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; becoming the first African-American in the United States to earn the designation of Episcopal Priest; or, navigating her way through the difficult task of attaining an Undergraduate Degree, Masters in Law, as well as a Juris Doctor from one of the Country's finest Law Schools (University of California - Berkley), Ms. Murray's life provides an eternal sense of hope;  representing a brightly shining example of housing for the homeless, friendship for the lonely, educational opportunity for the poor, equality for the female, representation for the poor, freedom for the oppressed and lastly, salvation and reconciliation with our lord God, through Jesus Christ.

Clearly her life has touched - and paved the way for - others; to the extent that official recognition is appropriate.

As a Citizen of Durham, NC I can state with the utmost confidence that Ms. Murray's name is regarded in the highest manner, by Durhamites of all form, no matter what type of environment I find myself in at the time; whether it be a Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People meeting, Durham Inter Neighborhood Council Session, a Democratic Party gathering, or a Durham People's Alliance meeting -- the life of Ms. Pauli Murray was such that it has left a mark of distinction on the City.

Such stature deserves nothing less than an official marker, detailing the life, determination, heroism and accomplishment, of Ms. Murray.

Sincerely Yours,

Darius Mercedes Little

Darius M. Little, 
Business Consultant and Mediator 
(c) 919-641-4124 
(web) www.littleconsulting.org

-----Original Message-----
From: John Schelp <bwatu at yahoo.com>
Sender: inc-list-bounces at rtpnet.org
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 03:47:18 
To: <inc-list at DurhamINC.org>
Subject: [Durham INC] --> pls send short email supporting state marker for
	Pauli Murray

folks,

The Pauli Murray Project is working to get a state marker celebrating this champion for civil and human rights, who grew up in Durham.

Would you please send a short email asking the state to approve a marker for Pauli Murray? (Send it to me at bwatu at yahoo.com)

Feel free to use some of the information below in your message.

Need it by Saturday evening, Oct 30. Support from the community would help our efforts to recognize Pauli Murray. Thank you very much.

with best wishes,

John
Pauli Murray Project :: paulimurrayproject.org

****

Pauli Murray was a champion for civil and human rights who grew up in Durham. Her insights and vision continue to resonate powerfully in our times. As a historian, attorney, poet, activist, teacher and Episcopal priest, she worked throughout her life to address injustice, to give voice to the unheard, to educate, and to promote reconciliation between races and economic classes. Her beautifully written memoir, Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family, was published in 1956. The book chronicles her roots and paints a compelling portrait of Durham during its formative years.

More Background...

Pauli Murray (1910 – 1985)

Born in Baltimore in 1910, Anna Pauline “Pauli” Murray moved to Durham in 1914 to live with her aunt, Pauline Fitzgerald Dame, after the sudden death of her mother. While living in Durham, she resided with her family on Carroll Street and was raised by her aunt and her maternal grandparents, Robert George Fitzgerald and Cornelia Smith Fitzgerald. She graduated from Hillside High School in Durham in 1923 and Hunter College in 1933. Murray had a mixed-race heritage, which included both white slave owners and African American slaves from North Carolina (maternal grandmother) and Irish and free people of color from Pennsylvania (maternal grandfather). She described her experiences growing up in a mixed-race family in Durham in her 1956 book, Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family.

She went on to graduate at the top of her class from Howard Law School, receive her master’s in law from the University of California – Berkeley’s Boalt Hall Law School and then to be the first African American person to receive a J.S.D. from Yale Law School. She was a civil and human rights activist, a founder of the National Organization for Women and the first African American woman to be ordained an Episcopal priest. She published many articles, essays, books, poems and sermons. She was an advisor to Eleanor Roosevelt and was appointed by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, Committee on Civil and Political Rights.

Although she lived much of her adult life outside of North Carolina, there are two aspects of her life that are particularly significant to North Carolina, particularly as they relate to African-American history and the civil rights movement: her campaign for admission to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her ordination as the first female African-American priest in the Episcopal Church in the United States, after which she performed her first Eucharist at the Chapel of the Cross Episcopal Church in Chapel Hill.

The Campaign for UNC

In 1938, Murray applied to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for admission to the university’s graduate program in applied social work. Under the leadership of UNC President Frank Porter Graham, the university’s applied social work department was a national leader in the study of race relations in the late 1930s. However, the department had no black students or faculty at the time Murray applied, and her application was rejected pursuant to a North Carolina law that denied black students admission to the University. Murray led a campaign with the support of Lewis Alston, editor of the Carolina Times and other activists to challenge the decision of the University. While she received public support, the NAACP chose not to take her case and UNC did not admit African Americans to its graduate programs until 1951. Murray’s early campaign was widely credited by civil rights leaders in the state as paving the way for the desegregation of
higher education in North Carolina.

Ordination as the First African-American Woman Episcopal Priest

Pauli Murray was one of the first women and the first African-American woman to be ordained in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. Raised in the Episcopal faith, Murray entered seminary in 1973 and was ordained four years later. After her ordination at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, she presided over her first Eucharist at the Chapel of the Cross Episcopal in Chapel Hill, where her slave grandmother had been baptized in 1854. She described the historical significance of this event in her autobiography, Songs in a Weary Throat, describing herself at that moment as a “Descendant of slave and of slave owner . . . now I was empowered to minister the sacrament of One in whom there is no north or south, no black or white, no male or female—only the spirit of love and reconciliation drawing us all toward the goal of human wholeness.”

In 2008, the first woman Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schiori, recognized the historical nature of Murray’s ordination while visiting the Chapel of the Cross.

In 2009, the North Carolina’s Episcopal Diocese Convention passed a resolution asking that the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray be added to the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church in recognition of the her significance and the impact she has had across the nation and around the world.

Murray died in Pittsburgh on July 1, 1985 after batting cancer.

****

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