The Pauli Murray Family Home (By Sofia DiCarlo)
The Pauli Murray Family Home is located in Durham, North Carolina, and was home to women’s and civil rights activist Pauli Murray during her youth. Murray never had a long-time place of residency, so her childhood home is used as a remembrance of her impact on American legislation. Even though she only technically lived in this home for three years, she continued to return frequently throughout her life, even after it was sold by her aunt decades later.
Pauli Murray led a remarkable life, filled with countless accomplishments for herself and the communities she fought to give rights to. Murray was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on November 20th, 1910. She was the fourth of six children, and orphaned by the age of thirteen, so she moved to Durham, North Carolina to live with her grandparents and aunt. After graduating high school in 1926, she moved to New York City and pursued a degree in English Literature at Hunter College. After this, she attended Howard University, then University of California Boalt School of Law, where she earned her LLM (Master of Laws). Finally, she attended Yale Law School, where she earned her JDS degree (1). She wanted to attend University of North Carolina but was denied admittance because of her race, and she was also rejected from Harvard Law School “because of her gender.” (2). During her time at Howard, she became more aware of the oppression she faced, and coined the term “Jane Crow” to describe her experiences (3). “Jane Crow” refers to simultaneously facing gender and racial oppression in Jim Crow-era America, and how that has impacted her life, as well as the lives of other Black women in America. On the subject of gender, although Murray was often perceived as a woman, she did not always see herself as such. She described herself as having a “‘he/she personality’” in the “earlier parts” of her life, and “identified...as a man and a woman” at different stages of her life (4). Additionally, in her youth, she sought hormone treatments in order to masculinize herself, but never received them (5).
Murray began fighting segregation in the 1930's. In 1940, she was arrested and sent to prison for refusing to sit at the back of a segregated bus (6). She started working at a Law Firm in 1956 where she met her long-term partner, Irene Bowling. Four years later, “President John F. Kennedy appointed her to his Committee on Civil and Political Rights,” where she wrote a paper commissioned by JFK’s “Commission for the Status of Women” that argued including women in the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (7). Murray co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) with Betty Friedman, and then left not long after because of the lack of inclusion and advocacy for Black women. Eventually, in 1977, Murray became the first African-American woman to be ordained as an Episcopalian priest (8). Murray passed away in 1985 of cancer, leaving behind several written works and a legacy that has given equal rights to countless Americans.
(9)
The Pauli Murray Family Home was not witness to a singular event in Pauli Murray’s life that led to her future endeavors, but a place where she was influenced by her family to go forward and pursue her dreams, especially in education. In this house, she was raised by her grandparents, Robert and Cornelia Fitzgerald, and her aunt, Pauline Fitzgerald Dame. Murray lived at the house and visited family in Durham, North Carolina, for “just over three decades,” and continued to do so even after her Aunt Pauline sold it in 1953 (10). Since Murray did not have a true “long-term residence,” the National Parks Service designated this as the best place to honor her work for women’s, LGBTQ+, and civil rights (11). Although she only truly lived there consistently for about three years, those three years were where she dealt with the loss of both of her parents and prepared for her future. Her grandmother was previously a slave of mixed Black and white descent, and her grandfather was white. Pauli had the darkest skin out of her family in Durham, so growing up, she was treated differently because of her skin color. As she grew older and began to revisit her home, Durham became a place she continued to connect with throughout her other journeys in life, such as her attendance at different colleges. She wrote about the Durham home in her writings, and her “personal correspondence” implies a “strong emotional connection” to the house, despite only living there for three years (12).
(13)
It is important to know the history of this site, as well as Pauli Murray’s story , for a multitude of reasons. Although Murray’s life in Baltimore influenced her education and passion to pursue it, her life in Durham also held a great influence on her plans for the future. Her house represents, at its core, the progression of African-Americans rights throughout history. Her grandmother, a previous slave, was able to purchase this house with her husband and raise a family in the late 1890's—something she would not have been able to do even a few decades before (14). It is likely that this not only influenced Murray while she lived with her grandparents, but also when she lived with her father, as he was a Howard University graduate as well (15). Murray, throughout every one of her challenges, successes, and sometimes “failures,” returned to her childhood home to visit her family and reconnect with her roots. For many LGBTQ+ youth and young adults, especially from the 1930's to the 1960's, it was rare to be accepted by one’s family. Although it is not completely clear if her family accepted her sexual orientation or gender identity, or knew every aspect of those parts of her life, the fact that she continued to return back home again and again shows she valued her home enough to include it in her work on women’s, LGBTQ+, and civil rights.
(6) Brooks, Cornell William. Pauli Murray: A great American hero. http://content.ebscohost.com/ContentServer.asp?T=P&P=AN&K=100970933&S=R&D=qth&EbscoContent=dGJyMNHX8kSeqLY4zOX0OLCmsEiep7BSsqa4SbOWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPGuslCzq7NJuePfgeyx44Dt6fIA Windy City Times. Windy City Media Group. LGBTQ+ Source Database.
(7) Ibid.
(8) Ibid.
(9) Simmons-Thorne, Naomi. Pauli Murray and the Pronominal Problem: a De-essentialist Trans Historiography https://activisthistory.com/2019/05/30/pauli-murray-and-the-pronominal-problem-a-de-essentialist-trans-historiography/ The Activist History Review.
(10) Robert G. and Cornelia S. Fitzgerald House Pauli Murray Family Home 2016 Historic Structure Report https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c65c2920cf57db461b27ed8/t/5f2ab7fe1a2a6b5189b2c334/1596635154894/6_17_PMP_FitzgeraldHouse_HSR_Final.pdf Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice.
(11) Pauli Murray Family Home https://www.nps.gov/places/pauli-murray-family-home.htm Nations Parks Service.
(12) Robert G. and Cornelia S. Fitzgerald House Pauli Murray Family Home 2016 Historic Structure Report https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c65c2920cf57db461b27ed8/t/5f2ab7fe1a2a6b5189b2c334/1596635154894/6_17_PMP_FitzgeraldHouse_HSR_Final.pdf Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice.
(13) Pauli Murray Family Home https://www.nps.gov/places/pauli-murray-family-home.htm Nations Parks Service.
(14) Robert G. and Cornelia S. Fitzgerald House Pauli Murray Family Home 2016 Historic Structure Report https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c65c2920cf57db461b27ed8/t/5f2ab7fe1a2a6b5189b2c334/1596635154894/6_17_PMP_FitzgeraldHouse_HSR_Final.pdf Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice.
(15) Who Is Pauli Murray? https://www.paulimurraycenter.com/who-is-pauli Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice.
Bibliography
Who Is Pauli Murray? https://www.paulimurraycenter.com/who-is-pauli Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice. Accessed: 29th November, 2020
Pauli Murray Family Home https://www.nps.gov/places/pauli-murray-family-home.htm Nations Parks Service. Accessed: 29th November, 2020
Miller, Martha. An Activist on Three Fronts http://content.ebscohost.com/ContentServer.asp?T=P&P=AN&K=125106691&S=R&D=qth&EbscoContent=dGJyMNHX8kSeqLY4zOX0OLCmsEiep7BSsau4TLKWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPGuslCzq7NJuePfgeyx44Dt6fIA Gay and Lesbian Review. LGBTQ+ Source Database. Accessed: 29th November, 2020
Brooks, Cornell William. Pauli Murray: A great American hero. http://content.ebscohost.com/ContentServer.asp?T=P&P=AN&K=100970933&S=R&D=qth&EbscoContent=dGJyMNHX8kSeqLY4zOX0OLCmsEiep7BSsqa4SbOWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPGuslCzq7NJuePfgeyx44Dt6fIA Windy City Times. Windy City Media Group. LGBTQ+ Source Database. Accessed: 29th November, 2020.
Robert G. and Cornelia S. Fitzgerald House Pauli Murray Family Home 2016 Historic Structure Report https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c65c2920cf57db461b27ed8/t/5f2ab7fe1a2a6b5189b2c334/1596635154894/6_17_PMP_FitzgeraldHouse_HSR_Final.pdf Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice. Accessed: 29th November, 2020.
Simmons-Thorne, Naomi. Pauli Murray and the Pronominal Problem: a De-essentialist Trans Historiography https://activisthistory.com/2019/05/30/pauli-murray-and-the-pronominal-problem-a-de-essentialist-trans-historiography/ The Activist History Review. Accessed: 30th November, 2020
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