Anna Pauline

Short Biography

The Reverend Dr. Anna Pauline "Pauli" Murray (November 20, 1910 – July 1, 1985) was an American civil rights activist, women's rights activist, lawyer, and author. Dr. Murray was also the first black woman ordained an Episcopal priest. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Murray was raised mostly by her maternal grandparents. At the age of sixteen, she moved to New York to attend Hunter College, graduating with a B.A. in English in 1933. In 1940, Murray was arrested with a friend for violating v*rginia segregation laws after they sat in the whites-only section of a bus. This incident, and her subsequent involvement with the socialist Workers' Defense League, led to a career goal as a civil rights lawyer, and she enrolled at Howard University. While at Howard, she became increasingly aware of sexism, which she called "Jane Crow", comparing it to the Jim Crow racial segregation laws. Murray graduated first in her class, but was denied the chance to do further work at Harvard University because of her gender. In 1965 she became the first African American to receive a J.S.D. from Yale Law School.As a lawyer, Murray argued for civil rights and women's rights. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Chief Counsel Thurgood Marshall called Murray's 1950 book States' Laws on Race and Color the "bible" of the civil rights movement. Murray served on the 1961 Presidential Commission on the Status of Women and in 1966 was a co-founder of the National Organization for Women. Ruth Bader Ginsburg later named Murray a coauthor on a brief for Reed v. Reed in recognition of her pioneering work on gender discrimination. Murray held faculty or administrative positions at the Ghana School of Law, Benedict College, and Brandeis University.