Pauli Murray (November 20, 1910 – July 1, 1985)
North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill (photographer, date unknown)
The Reverend Dr. Anna Pauline (Pauli) Murray was a civil rights activist, women’s rights champion, lawyer and writer. In 1965, she became the first African American to receive a JD degree from Yale University. In 1977, she became the first black woman ordained as an Episcopal priest.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Murray was sent to live with family members in Durham, North Carolina after her mother’s death in 1914. Her 1956 memoir, Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family, chronicles the history of her extraordinary family from the mid-nineteenth through mid-twentieth century.
