Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray was a women of intelligence far beyond her time.

Murray is under-credited for being one of the first African American women to practice law, and also for her contributions to Brown v. Board of Education. In 1944, Murray was the only women enrolled at Howard Law School and was at the top of her class. During this time, she wrote papers and eventually a book on how Plessy v. Ferguson could be challenged. Many doubted saying that challenging it could lead to it getting overturned. Murray believed that they could argue that discrimination is unconstitutional. On this belief she wrote a book in 1950 called States’ Laws on Race and Color. This book was called the “bible” of Brown v. Board of Education by Thurgood Marshall.

Not only were Murray’s papers and books the backbone of Brown v. Board of Education, she also co-wrote “Jane Crow and the Law.”  Jane Crow was coined a sister term to Jim Crow by Murray. This argued that the Equal Protection Clause needed to be applied to discrimination on the basis of sex. This was later successfully argued by a young Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Reed v. Reed. Murray was credited with being co-author.

Murray was also arrested in 1940 for her refusal to move to the back of the bus, similar to that of Rosa Parks over a decade before her well known protest in Montgomery.

She is also a LGBTQ+ icon because of her expressed gender fluidity throughout her life.

Murray was named “Woman of the Year” by magazine Mademoiselle in 1947, yet despite all of this, Murray is not well known. She passed away in 1985 and has since gained some recognition. In 2012 she was sainted by the Episcopal Church, where she was the first women to be ordained a priest in 1977.