{"id":61671,"date":"2021-09-30T03:38:24","date_gmt":"2021-09-30T03:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=61671"},"modified":"2021-09-30T15:22:47","modified_gmt":"2021-09-30T15:22:47","slug":"how-is-pauli-murray-not-a-household-name-the-extraordinary-life-of-the-uss-most-radical-activist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=61671","title":{"rendered":"\u2018How is Pauli Murray not a household name?\u2019 The extraordinary life of the US\u2019s most radical activist"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018How is Pauli Murray not a household name?\u2019 The extraordinary life of the US\u2019s most radical activist<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a>
2021-09-17<\/p>\n

Steve Rose<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\u2018I lived to see my lost causes found\u2019 \u2026 Pauli Murray<\/a>. Photograph: Everett Collection Historical\/Alamy<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

She explored her gender and sexuality in the 20s, defied segregation in the 40s and inspired Ruth Bader Ginsburg<\/a>. Now, a film<\/a> is bringing her trailblazing achievements to light<\/em><\/p>\n

It seems inconceivable that someone like Pauli Murray<\/a> could have slipped through the cracks of US<\/a> history. A lawyer, activist, scholar, poet and priest, Murray led a trailblazing life that altered the course of history. She was at the forefront of the battles for racial and gender equality, but often so far out in front that her contributions went unrecognised.<\/p>\n

In 1940, 15 years before Rosa Parks<\/a>, Murray was jailed for refusing to move to the back of a bus in the Jim Crow<\/a> south. In 1943, she campaigned successfully to desegregate her local diner, 17 years before the Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins<\/a> of 1960. Her work paved the way for the landmark supreme court ruling Brown v Board of Education<\/em><\/a> in 1954 \u2013 which de-segregated US schools \u2013 to the extent that Thurgood Marshall<\/a>, a lawyer for the NAACP<\/a> civil rights group, called Murray\u2019s book States\u2019 Laws on Race and Color<\/em><\/a> \u201cthe bible for civil rights lawyers\u201d.<\/p>\n

Murray also co-founded the National Organization for Women<\/a> (NOW), in 1966, alongside Betty Friedan<\/a>. When Ruth Bader Ginsburg<\/a> won the Reed v Reed<\/em><\/a> case in 1971, which ruled that discrimination \u201con the basis of sex\u201d was unconstitutional, her arguments were built on Murray\u2019s work. Ginsburg named Murray as co-author of the brief. \u201cWe knew when we wrote that brief that we were standing on her shoulders,\u201d Ginsburg later said.<\/p>\n

Murray ought to be celebrated as an American hero, commemorated in stamps, statuary and street names, not to mention biopics, so why is her name relatively unknown?…<\/p>\n