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Pauli Murray

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The Resume

    (November 10, 1920-July 1, 1985)
    Born in Baltimore, Maryland
    Birth name was Anna Pauline Murray
    Author of 'States' Laws on Race and Color' (1950)
    Earned a master's in law at University of California, Berkeley
    First African American to receive a PhD from Yale Law School (1965)
    Close associate of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt
    Co-founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW), in 1966
    First black woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest, in 1977
    Also wrote 'The Constitution and Government in Ghana,' 'Dark Testament and Other Poems,' and 'Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family'

Why she might be annoying:

    She was twice hospitalized for psychiatric treatment.
    She looked like Bayard Rustin.
    Google searches for her name tend to turn up images of the original 'Scarface' star, Paul Muni.
    She was unsuccessful in her attempts to integrate the University of North Carolina graduate school.
    When a Supreme Court vacancy came up in the mid-60s, she naively submitted a resume to 'apply for the job.'
    She had abdominal surgery to see if she had 'submerged male sex organs.'
    She pursued hormone treatments to correct what she claimed was 'a personal imbalance.'
    She resisted the label of 'lesbian' even as she admitted to having an 'introverted sex instinct' which led her to pursue women in the way a man would.
    She was so set on identifying as something 'other than a woman' that she chose to go by her middle name, which she shortened to the more masculine 'Pauli.'
    Her involvement with Eleanor Roosevelt came after she had penned a letter written to FDR criticizing his failure to address issues pertaining to African-Americans. The First Lady wrote back critiquing the letter as 'thoughtless.'

Why she might not be annoying:

    She was impoverished to the point of malnutrition when she worked her way through Hunter College.
    When she graduated, she was one of only four blacks out of a class of 247 (1933).
    She was the only woman student at Howard University (she reportedly converted a ladies' powder room into a makeshift dormitory).
    She was appointed by President Kennedy as a leading member on the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women (1961).
    Ruth Bader Ginsburg named her as a coauthor for her 'Reed v. Reed' brief, in recognition of her pioneering work on gender discrimination.
    She got her first brush with infamy after sitting in the whites-only section of a Virginia bus being arrested for violating the state's Jim Crow laws.
    She combated the discrimination she experienced within the male-dominated Civil Rights movement by inventing the term 'Jane Crow.'
    Thurgood Marshall praised her 'States' Laws on Race and Color' book as 'the bible of the civil rights movement.'
    Her private dispute with Mrs. Roosevelt led to a twenty-plus year friendship between the them (she would regularly meet her for weekend visits and afternoon tea until her death in 1962).
    When she graduated from Howard University, an ornate arrangement of flowers were delivered to her in the middle of the commencement ceremony proceedings. They were from Mrs. Roosevelt.

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 14 Votes: 57.14% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 7 Votes: 85.71% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 22 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 9 Votes: 44.44% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 14 Votes: 57.14% Annoying