Pauli Murray was the first black female priest ordained by the Episcopal Church. A descendant of a North Carolina slave and slave owner, Murray was an early an committed civil rights activist. After her parents’ death, Pauli moved from Baltimore to North Carolina at the age of three to live with her grandparents and aunt whom she was named after.
Murray graduated from Hunter College in 1933. After a campaign to gain admission into an all-white University of North Carolina Law School in 1938, she was denied due to her race. The next year she took a job with the Workers’ Defense League and went onto graduate from Howard University Law School in 1944. She was denied admission to Harvard University for an advanced law degree because of her gender.
In 1945, Murray successfully completed her Masters of Law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. Her master’s thesis was “The Right to Equal Opportunity in Employment,” which Thurgood Marshall labeled the “bible” for civil rights lawyers. Twenty years later, she was the first black person to be awarded a Doctor of Judicial Science degree from Yale Law School.
Committed to dismantling barriers of race, Murray was also dedicated to the feminist cause. In 1966, she was a founding member of the civil rights group of the National Organization of Women (NOW). Murray saw the civil rights and women’s rights movements as intertwined and believed that black women had a vested interest in the women’s movement. Keenly aware of racial discrimination, Murray was unaware of sex discrimination until she attended Howard University, a predominately black university.
Murray taught at Benedict College in North Carolina, in Ghana, and at Brandeis University until the death of her close friend Renee Barlau in 1973. After being denied the right to administer last rites to Barlau, Murray felt compelled to enter the priesthood. She began her studies in general Theological Seminary in 1976 and was ordained at the National Cathedral the following the following year. She served at Church of the Atonement in Washington, D.C. from 1979-1981 and at the Holy Nativity Church in Baltimore until her death in 1985.
*On Tuesday, July 3, 2012, the Union of Black Episcopalians kept the memory of Rev. Dr. Anna (Pauli) Murray alive with the creation of UBE Pauli Murray Award. The honor was bestowed at the Legendary Tribute and Gala which honored the 35th Anniversary of Women’s Ordination in the Episcopal Church.
Source: Archives of the Episcopal Church