Have you ever heard of Pauli Murray? If you teach twentieth-century American history, in particular the Civil Rights Movement or the women's rights movement, you're probably already familiar with some of Pauli’s ideas because of their influence on landmark court cases related to race and gender. You may have even learned about some of Pauli’s collaborators, like Thurgood Marshall, Betty Friedan or Ruth Bader Ginsburg. So why is it that most of us never learned about Pauli in school? 

In this episode, Kathleen Barker will take you back in time to Pauli Murray's early years to learn about some of the formative events that shaped their career as a Black, queer, legal and civil rights pioneer.  

You will also hear Pauli Murray in their own words from an interview recorded on February 13, 1976, with Genna Rae McNeil, assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for the Southern Oral History Program. 

This History UnErased podcast is funded by the New York City Council. It was developed by History UnErased and produced and edited by Dinah Mack; Kathleen Barker; Amanda Hurwitz; and Deb Fowler.