Celebration of Pauli Murray

In collaboration with the American LGBTQ+ Museum, join us in celebration of Pauli Murray on their Feast Day, July 1. Dean Winnie Varghese will be in discussion with Pauli Murray scholar and Associate Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, Sarah Azaransky; Canon Theologian, The Reverend Canon Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas; and Associate Professor of History at Antioch College, Kevin McGruder.

Pauli Murray was a groundbreaking civil rights activist, legal scholar, writer, and Episcopal priest whose ideas helped shape modern American equality law. Born in Baltimore and raised in North Carolina, Murray challenged racial segregation years before the broader Civil Rights Movement and later became a pioneering lawyer whose arguments influenced both race- and sex-discrimination cases. Murray coined the term “Jane Crow” to describe the double discrimination faced by Black women and helped inspire the legal strategy later used in landmark equal-protection cases. In 1977, Murray became the first Black woman ordained as an Episcopal priest. Their legacy spans civil rights, feminism, literature, and LGBTQ+ history, making Murray one of the most influential yet long underrecognized figures of the 20th century.