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

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!


Outline
0:00 – Introduction
10:00 – Main Topic: Pauli Murray
13:06 – Socio-Historical Context
14:36 – A Note on Pronouns
16:11 – Who were they? Bio Time.
19:26 – Content Warning: Racial violence
30:05 – Fun Segment: Word of the Week
57:13 – Poetry and Memoir Writing
1:12:19 – Content Warning: Stark descriptions of slave
trade
1:20:55 – Closing and Where to Find Us Online


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