The Reverend Doctor Pauli Murray

1910-1985, United States
Feast Day: July 1 an androgynous black woman wearing priestly vestments

Bio:

Pauli Murray is a lesser-known hero of the African-American civil rights movement and the women's rights movement in the United States. She spent her career fighting for equal rights for women and Black Americans, coining the term "Jane Crow" to refer to the intersectional oppression faced by Black women. Later in life, she became the first Black woman to be ordained to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church. In spite of the importance of her work to 20th-century social justice movements, she remained somewhat obscure until she was named a Saint of the Episcopal Church in 2012 and honored with a feast day on July 1. Some have suggested that her gender nonconformity and lesbian relationships were a factor in her legacy being downplayed in comparison to figures like Rosa Parks or Ruth Bader Ginsburg. On the other hand, Reverend Murray did not seek personal fame during her lifetime, and much of her work was done "behind the scenes."

Part of my motivation for creating this icon of Reverend Murray was personal frustration with some of the discourse surrounding her gender identity and sexual orientation, especially the anachronistic use of they/them pronouns which is common in some "progressive" circles, and the tendency of some people to focus on her private medical history instead of her positive political identification as a "woman." I find this to be an incredibly disrespectful way to approach Reverend Murray's relationship to gender and sexuality.

Reverend Murray's prime years were something of a "golden age" of old-school butch/femme lesbian culture in the US. As a "butch lesbian" myself, I understand Reverend Murray to be "one of us," even though she (like many of us) wasn't a fan of fixed labels and categories. The "butch experience" is complex and diverse and there are as many ways to be butch as there are butches. At present there are trans butches, cis butches, butches who "don't do gender," bisexual butches, asexual butches, butches who use testosterone or get surgeries, butches who don't, butches who use he/him pronouns, butches who use she/her pronouns, butches who use gender-neutral or neopronouns, butches who identify as women, butches who identify as lesbians but not as women, butches who don't use the word "butch," and so forth. Our community resists concrete classification, but we nevertheless recognize a continuity of experiences between us as individuals. The unique intersections of our lives deserve to be taken seriously and respected for what they are. That was also the bottom line of Reverend Murray's advocacy: rights and dignity for all people, regardless of how they are labeled by an inequitable society.

I challenge everyone who wants to have an opinion about Reverend Murray to place her own words at the center of their understanding. Her autobiography, Song in a Weary Throat, was completed as a labor of love as she battled pancreatic cancer near the end of her life. This book represents her own understanding of her life journey and gives us an image of herself as she wanted to be remembered by the public.

This bio is a revision of an older version that I wrote before I read both of Reverend Murray's books. The original was written in a much harsher tone, and privileged my own strong feelings and opinions to a degree that I now find embarrassing.

Iconography

Reverend Murray appears here in priestly vestments, including a purple stole--the color of remorse and repentance. She is a respected authority and reminds her flock of the continual need to repent of our complicity in systems of injustice.
Her right hand is raised in a classical "blessing" gesture. Her legacy is a blessing to all people, regardless of race, gender, or other arbitrary divisions.
Her book reads "True community is based upon Equality, Mutuality, and Reciprocity." The need for flexible and equitable approaches to freedom and justice are a constant theme in her writing.

The Reverend Doctor Pauli Murray

Bio:

Iconography

Further reading about Pauli Murray: