Please note: This was screened in June 2021
Fifteen years before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat, and a decade before the US Supreme Court overturned separate-but-equal legislation, Pauli Murray was already heavily involved in the battle for social justice. A pioneering Black attorney, activist, priest, poet and memoirist, Murray shaped landmark litigation – and consciousness – around race and gender equity.
Both Pauli’s personal path and tireless advocacy foreshadowed some of the most politically consequential issues of our time. As an African American youth raised in the segregated South – who was also wrestling with broader notions of gender identity – Pauli understood what it meant to exist beyond previously accepted categories and cultural norms. Told largely in Murray’s own words, this filmic portrait reveals a tenacious spirit. Pauli Murray is a name you will not forget.