Rosa Parks. Thurgood Marshall. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. School integration. Diner sit ins. All of these people and actions are trademarks of the trailblazing Civil Rights era in the United States, upending previous historical discrimination and promoting a new, more equal, better America. But those trailblazers above apparently were plagiarizing the ideas/actions of Pauli Murray, a brilliant, forward thinking non binary African American with about as amazing of a life as anyone of the famous heroes mentioned above. Huh? Her name is? WHAT? Sorry, His name is. HUH?? Sorry again, their name is chicka chicka Pauli Murray. The real Slim Sha…er. Pauli Murray.
The doc gives us the highlights of this amazing person. Murray grew up all over the place: Virginia, New York, North Carolina after being orphaned early by her shockingly culturally mixed parents (her family was described as the UN in miniature). Despite that traumatizing childhood, Murray’s family encouraged her to live out that American Dream and be whatever they wanted to be. And dream she did! She educated herself until college, and forced her way into those predominately white male institutions to become a lawyer. Pauli then channeled than young rebellious progressive voice into affecting the law, crafting the cases against Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal) for example, that people like Thurgood Marshall would use as a template for their own, more famous cases later. We also get glimpses as to how progressive Murray was: basically explaining in her writings her queer identity that contemporary activists point to as an early example of non binary sexuality.
The closes comp I can come up with for Pauli Murray is James Baldwin. Both share similar, flexible upbringings which gave them greater perspective on the world they lived in. They both also struggled with their identity on multiple levels, which helped fuel their literary talents to become intellectual giants of their eras, and fascinating subjects of documentaries because of the amazing life they built in for themselves in repressive societies. But while Baldwin used television to help sell his message, Murray stuck with recordings and was content to work behind the scenes crusading for equal rights.
It cannot be understated how deep the well of Pauli Murray’s vision of society influenced generations of reformers. Her tendrils obviously can be seen in the Civil Rights movement, which the doc points out repeatedly how she sat in at discriminatory diners and boycotted segregated bus seating at least a decade before civil rights leaders learned from Murray and used those same tactics. But the next barrier for Murray after her race was her birth gender: Bader Ginsburg credits Murray in the doc for basically stealing her ideas on how to push for gender equality in the courts. Murray’s next fight after that was with her sexual identity, which current LGBTQ reformers used her teachings to help push to legalize gay rights in the United States only a couple years ago. The big lesson here that the doc shows is Murray was never content to let society dictate who she had to be: she burst through those walls like the Hulk, using that brilliant mind to smash through any resistance in clever and transgressive ways.
I’m so glad Murray was so prolific a writer. In her “free” time she would write down James Joyce style what she was doing but in a way that resonates with generations long since she has passed. For those interested in discovering what an amazing person Pauli Murray was, the Schlesinger Library at Harvard houses all of her writings. How many are we talking, well according to their website: “62.01 linear feet ((135 file boxes, 5 half file boxes, 2 folio boxes, 2 folio+ boxes) plus 12 folio folders, 13 folio folders, 5 oversize folders, 1 supersize folder, 2 oversize volumes, 122 photograph folders, 2 photograph albums, 120 audiocassettes).” Now that must have been a cluttered apartment for sure.