Pauli Murray Project

“True Community is based upon equality, mutuality, and reciprocity. It affirms the richness of individual diversity as well as the common human ties that bind us together.”
Pauli Murray

At 67, Pauli Murray was the first African American woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. She offered the Eucharist for the first time at the Chapel Hill church where her grandmother had been baptized as a slave.

“It has taken me almost a lifetime to discover that true emancipation lies in the acceptance of the whole past, in deriving strength from all my roots, in facing up to the degradation as well as the dignity of my ancestors.”
Pauli Murray

Face Up: Telling Stories of Community Life mural project used Murray’s image in its work with more than 1500 people. The project was sponsored by the Center for Documentary Studies and the Southwest Central Durham Quality of Life Project.

Pauli Murray as a toddler with her parents and siblings. After her mother’s death, Murray moved to the Durham home of her aunt, Pauline Fitzgerald Dame, a teacher.

The Pauli Murray Project is collaborating with the Resource Center for Women in Ministry in the South to mount a textile exhibition in the Fall of 2010, in honor of Murray’s 100^th birthday.

1926 Hillside High School Graduate of Distinction, Murray edited the school newspaper and competed with the debate team.

Pauli Murray was a human rights champion. The Pauli Murray Project seeks to create opportunities for dialogue about our history that will enable us to establish a better foundation for positive change in the future.

Murray and Eleanor Roosevelt’s decades of friendship began when Murray asked Franklin Roosevelt for help after she was denied admission to UNC – Chapel Hill because of her race. Eleanor replied with a personal letter.