36. The Life of Pauli Murray: Confrontation by Typewriter, Part 1

History is Gay

In this episode of History is Gay, Leigh and guest host Aubree Calvin discuss Pauli Murray, an important African American lawyer, and activist who is finally getting the historical attention they deserve. In their time, Murray was a labor rights, civil rights, and women’s rights activist, and broke significant barriers all while facing sexism and racism. In addition to having a brilliant legal mind, they were a writer, poet, and priest, and had time to be friends with Eleanor Roosevelt. Pauli Murray should be in every U.S. History book in every K-12 school.

So, if Pauli Murray was so important to so many movements, why has history largely forgotten them? Leigh and Aubree try to answer that in this two-episode series. This first episode looks at their upbringing, many careers, and accomplishments. Later, in part two, we look at what made Pauli queer, and try to get a handle, as best we can, on their gender identity.

Our wonderful guest host for this episode, Aubree Calvin, can be found at www.aubreecalvin.com or on her podcast Southern Queeries. You can also hear Aubree in previous episodes, which you can check out by clicking here!

Outline0:00 – Introduction10:00 – Main Topic: Pauli Murray13:06 – Socio-Historical Context14:36 – A Note on Pronouns16:11 – Who were they? Bio Time.19:26 – Content Warning: Racial violence30:05 – Fun Segment: Word of the Week57:13 – Poetry and Memoir Writing1:12:19 – Content Warning: Stark descriptions of slave trade1:20:55 – Closing and Where to Find Us Online

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