- Title
- Our State
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-
- Date
- February 2003
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-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
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Our State
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2?
tor heel history
Standing in Proud Shoes
As a Hack wvman horn in 1910. Durham's Pauli Murray
pioneered in ihe struggle for racial and gender equality long
before the civil rights and uwnen s movements of the 1960s.
by Chari» s Bi ackkurx Ik.
Achieving the American dream
proved extraordinarily
difficult for a black woman
born in 1910. But Durham'» own
Pauli Murray
«л»
determined to live
up to her full potential, even if it
meant insisting that this great nation
lice up to it» ideals. She was a
pioneer in the struggle for racial and
gender equality long before the civil
right» and women's movements of
live 1960s.
It is little known today, but in
19-14 Murray led the first organized
sit-in at a Washington, D.C..
cafeteria and was arrested in
Virginia four years earlier for
refusing to sit at the back of a bus.
That was 15 years before Rosa
Parks' arrest on a similar charge
helped fuel a bus boycott in
Montgomery. Alabama, and
16 years before the famous sit-in
at Woo I worth'» lunch counter
in Greensboro.
Murray saw no reason to take a
back seat to anyone and was
unwilling to accept limitations
placed on her by others. Her
astounding range of accomplishments
as an activist, lawyer, educator,
priest, and author were achieved in
spite of hardships and obstacles
that would have defeated many a
lesser light.
Murray's was a powerful voice,
imbued with a strength and tenacity
that belied her diminutive stature and
Southern ways. Her contributions to
literature earned her a place among
the 36 author* currently honored in
the North Carolina Literary Hall of
f ame housed in the Weymouth
Center for the Arts and Humanities
in Southern Pines.
Duty, industry, and courage
born in Baltimore and orphaned at
an early age. Anna Pauline Murray
«1910-1985)
was raised on Cameron
Street behind Maplewood Cemetery
in Durham by her maternal
grandparents and an aunt, in whose
first-grade class she learned to read.
Two other aunts also took a keen
interest in her upbringing.
"Having no parents o< my own."
she wrote in her memoir Proud
Shots. “I had in effect three
mothers, each trying to impress
upon me those traits of character
expected of a Fitzgerald — stern
devotion to duty, capacity for
hard work, industry, thrift, and
Юг-ши,
Mi Our Jtiic
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