Collections by Michelle Brown WSG Pamela Alexander on the life of Pauli Murray

Pamela E. Alexander is a part of Detroit’s LGBTQ history. She has been active in the metro-Detroit community for years  She is a “Gold Star” mother. The retired Deputy Director of the Ruth Ellis Center was instrumental on the founding and Development of the Kofi House: Center for Lesbian and Queer Women and Girls. Her love of Black, Women’s, and LGBTQ history inspired her research in the life and legacy of Pauli Murray.

The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray was an activist for American civil rights and women’s rights. She was a lawyer, poet, author, and first African American Woman Episcopalian priest.“Pauli” Murray was born in Baltimore, MD. She was orphaned when young, and raised mostly by her maternal grandparents in Durham, NC. In 1940, Murray sat in the whites-only section of a bus in Virginia and was arrested for violating state segregation laws. She enrolled in the law school at Howard University, where she also became aware of sexism. She called it "Jane Crow" and published a book by that title.

As a lawyer, Murray argued for civil rights and women's rights.Thurgood Marshall called Murray's 1950 book, States' Laws on Race and Color, the "bible" of the civil rights movement.. In 1966 she was a co-founder of the National Organization of Women (NOW). Ruth Bader Ginsberg named Murray as a co-author of a brief on the 1971 case Reed v. Reed,  She became an ordained priest in 1977, among the first generation of women priests.

In addition to her legal and advocacy work, Pauli published two well-reviewed autobiographies and a volume of poetry.