Whispers That Shaped the World
Pauli Murray and the Power of Gentle Resistance
“True community is based upon equality, mutuality, and reciprocity. It affirms the richness of individual diversity as well as the common human ties that bind us together.”
— Pauli Murray
Good morning, dear hearts.
This past weekend reminded us of the fragility of democracy and the ferocity required to defend it. The air was thick with tension and heartbreak—a political assassination, a resounding wave of public protest, and a nation once again reckoning with its reflection.
But what touched my spirit most deeply was not the speeches, or the headlines, or even the glorious parades that painted streets in rainbow and resistance. It was something quieter.
It was the town of barely 500 that still gathered 15 strong in front of the library.
The elder on oxygen who couldn’t march but posted a note of protest to their window and the couple who posted a Note on their Substack.
The teacher who left a rainbow pin on a desk in a hostile classroom.
The soul who whispered “no more” even if the room didn’t want to hear it.
In each of these acts, and thousands more unseen by us, people were resisting. Quietly. Humbly. In steadfast resolve. To each of these quiet warriors, whether I saw your actions or not, whether you will ever read these words, know that I am grateful. For your spirit. Your Hope. Carried like a whisper on a breathe of wind. Today at the tea table, we celebrate those whispering in quiet resistance.
This is a kind of courage that isn’t measured in decibels, but in depth.
And it is in that spirit that we honor one of Pride’s most overlooked architects: Pauli Murray—a person who reshaped history not with volume, but with vision.
The Architect of Two Movements
Pauli Murray was born in 1910, orphaned by age 12, and raised by a fiercely independent aunt in Durham, North Carolina. From the beginning, their life intersected with the sharpest edges of American injustice. Assigned female at birth, Black, poor, queer, and gender nonconforming in an era that lacked the words or will to recognize such complexity—Murray lived inside every margin.
And yet they refused to be reduced by any of them.
Denied entry to the University of North Carolina in 1938 because of their race, Murray penned a bold letter of protest to the university’s president. Their public objection gained national attention and caught the eye of none other than Eleanor Roosevelt—sparking a decades-long correspondence between the two women that blended political insight with personal mentorship.
It would be the first of many times Murray used the tools of polite society to pry open its gates.
Murray went on to graduate at the top of their class at Howard University School of Law—the only woman in their cohort, and often mocked by male peers for daring to claim space in the legal arena. But Murray had more than talent. They had foresight. In 1944, they wrote a senior thesis arguing that Plessy v. Ferguson, the case that had legalized segregation, was fundamentally unconstitutional. A decade later, Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund would use that very strategy in Brown v. Board of Education, toppling legal segregation at last.
Pauli Murray had helped map the path forward—before most even knew it was possible.
A Legal Mind, A Poet’s Heart
Their legal brilliance did not stop at race. Murray understood deeply that the fight for freedom could never be unidimensional. In 1965, they co-wrote a paper titled “Jane Crow and the Law,” which laid the groundwork for recognizing gender-based discrimination as a constitutional issue. That paper would become a cornerstone of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s early legal battles for women’s rights.
But even as they carved new channels through the legal system, Murray often found that the law could not fully hold their truth.
They turned to poetry.
To prayer.
To history.
In private journals, they chronicled a lifelong internal struggle with gender identity—describing themselves as “in between,” seeking hormone therapy and even exploratory medical opinions that might confirm what they already knew: that their body and their spirit were not in harmony. Today, many see in Murray’s writings a clear articulation of trans and nonbinary experience, long before such language was in wide use.
And still, they persisted.
Denied ordination in the church as a woman for decades, Murray returned to seminary in their 60s. In 1977, they became the first Black person assigned female at birth to be ordained as an Episcopal priest—bringing their legal, poetic, and spiritual work full circle.
They gave their first Eucharist at the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill—the very place where their enslaved grandmother had been baptized a century earlier.
A Survivor’s Truth
Their life was a lattice of paradoxes: Black and queer in a white supremacist world, legally trained yet spiritually restless, too radical for the institutions they served, and yet often too quiet to be remembered by them. But they endured.
“If anyone should ask a Negro woman in America what has been her greatest achievement,” Pauli once said, “her honest answer would be, ‘I survived.’”
And that survival was no passive act—it was resistance, persistence, and a radical reclamation of space.
Murray’s entire life was a form of protest:
against white supremacy, against misogyny, against queer erasure, against theological exclusion.
And yet their protest was never rooted in destruction—it was rooted in creation.
They made spaces where none existed.
They laid legal foundations.
They birthed new language.
They insisted on wholeness in a world built on division.
A Legacy for the Living
Today, Murray’s name is finally being lifted—at Yale, where a residential college now bears their name, and in films and books that are beginning to tell the truth they carried for so long in solitude.
But I think Pauli Murray would have found their truest honor not in accolades, but in action.
They would see it in the quiet Pride gathering in a town with no parade.
In the young queer student asking for a name change on the class roll.
In the voter who shows up, trembling but unbowed, to defend the dignity of all.
In every soul who says, “I am here,” even when it is not safe or easy.
So today, let us carry their legacy forward.
Let us write.
Let us pray.
Let us teach.
Let us serve.
Let us refuse to be silenced.
Let us remember that even when our voices shake or our bodies falter, our truth—our very being—is a form of resistance.
Because as Pauli Murray once said:
“Hope is a song in a weary throat.”
Let us sing it still.
Until our Next Bold Move,
~ Lady LiberTea ✨🫖
✊🏽 Carrying the Quiet Torch
Pauli Murray didn’t just dream of justice—they built blueprints for it, one quiet stone at a time. Now it’s our turn to keep laying the foundation. If their life teaches us anything, it’s that every action matters—no matter how small it seems. Even a whisper can shift the world.
Here’s how you can carry their light forward today:
🖋 Learn and Share Pauli’s Story
Most Americans still don’t know the name Pauli Murray. Change that.
Watch the documentary “My Name Is Pauli Murray” (Amazon Prime)
Read “The Firebrand and the First Lady” by Patricia Bell-Scott
Share this post or create your own to honor their legacy.
⚖️ Support Legal Warriors in Pauli’s Footsteps
Donate or amplify the work of groups continuing Murray’s legal and intersectional mission:
The Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice in Durham, NC
🗳 Show Up for the Margins
Pauli’s vision of equality included everyone.
Support policies and candidates that defend voting rights, LGBTQ+ protections, and reproductive freedom. Your voice—and your vote—are sacred tools.
📚 Honor the Whole Truth
If you’re an educator, activist, parent, or simply someone who shares stories—tell the full story. Include voices like Pauli’s in your curriculum, conversations, and commemorations. There is no justice without memory.
And most of all—keep whispering, keep writing, keep being.
Even in a weary world, we are still the architects of freedom.
Until our next whisper in the wind,
~ Lady LiberTea✨🫖
"There is no justice without memory." Great line!
Thank you so much for introducing us to Pauli in this wonderful piece!