A Tale of Two Paulines

Have you heard of Eleanor Roosevelt? Thurgood Marshall? Ruth Bader Ginsberg? Pauli Murray? Despite her relative obscurity, Pauli Murray laid the foundation for their success. Her remarkable life has inspired me, so I’d like to share her story, its echoes in my own life and the ABCs I claim as guidance. 

Named after her aunt Pauline, she preferred the gender-neutral moniker Pauli [1]. I was named to honor my grandmother Pauline, but my legal name is Polly. Pauli was raised in Durham, North Carolina, where I lived for more than 20 years. I feel a kindred spirit with her because of our given names and where we lived, but let me tell you why you should have heard of her. Pauli wrote Eleanor Roosevelt about various causes, inspiring the First Lady and ultimately befriending her. She laid the legal architecture used by Thurgood Marshall in Brown v. Board of Education and by Ruth Bader Ginsberg to win landmark cases on gender discrimination. More recently, her work has been used by attorneys employed to extend workplace protections and marriage equality to LGBTQ+ communities. These deeds only scratch the surface of her life [2].

The ABCs of What Pauli Taught Me

The first thing I learned from the way Pauli lived her life is to ask for what you deserve. Pauli asked the world for what she deserved rather than accept what was expected of her. [3], and she moved much asking for what she deserved. In 1938, she asked to attend the University of North Carolina, an institution the slave-owning side of her family helped fund, but was told “members of your race are not admitted,” a legacy of that slave heritage [4]. As the Howard University School of Law valedictorian, she earned a year of study at Harvard University, where she was denied entrance due to her gender. She asked to be admitted, writing, “I would gladly change my sex to meet your requirements, but since the way to such change has not been revealed to me, I have no recourse but to appeal to you to change your minds on this subject” [5]. For Pauli, asking was a way of life.

Pauli’s asking has taught me not to accept what I am given but to ask for what I need. Studies show women ask for less and are less likely to negotiate [6]. After 15+ years working for a leading analytics company, I asked the advice of an analytics leader about directing a data science team as a nontechnical business leader. I have asked to be put on projects, included in meetings, meet with people who might not judge my stature worth their time, for salaries above what I was offered. Just like Pauli, I’ve asked the world to match my big expectations instead of adjusting to smaller ones, an aspiration I haven’t always achieved but has been well worth it every time I tried.

The second lesson I’ve learned from Pauli is to build your own path. In 1910, no one expected an African American woman born into poverty in the South to become a lawyer, professor, published poet, Episcopal priest or friend to a First Lady. Yet, even with multiple advanced degrees, she had to forge her own career path, limited by options presented to her and her own choice to fight lonely causes. Finally hired at a prominent Manhattan corporate law firm, she left after only a few years to teach law in newly independent Ghana. A lifelong Episcopalian, she attended seminary in her 60s, even before the church voted to ordain women, and then became the first African American female priest. She built her own path – a path with heart.

I also built my own path, bent and twisted in ways I never expected, but also aligned with my own heart. Armed with a political science degree, I landed my dream job working on a high-profile political campaign before quickly waking up to the realities of politics. I shifted my activism to join a feminist social services organization. When it was time for a new challenge, I took a job with a philanthropic foundation, turning down a job offer at another activist organization even when their hiring manager warned me I’d be “selling out.”

I shocked family and friends when I announced plans to leave philanthropy to pursue an MBA to learn more about management because giving money away for a living motivates interest in its effective use. After graduation, I was thrilled with an offer to help ready a large software company to go public. But within months, my boss was fired – the first in a chain of eight senior executives to whom I reported who were fired or reshuffled while I worked for them. Each executive departure thrust me into entirely new roles, changes I viewed as calamitous until my spouse pointed out the opportunities to learn new skills in new places. I later took new places to new heights by leaving a job I enjoyed when we decided to relocate to the desert after living most of my life in the American South.

Pauli’s third life lesson is to connect with others. With that typewriter, she sent letters to friends, family and an astonishing range of leaders, a legacy significant enough for their correspondence to be preserved in at least two books and in many archives [7]. Her letters often meant to instigate action, but with them, she forged meaningful relationships, such as with Eleanor Roosevelt and Caroline Ware (a leading historian at the time) [8, 9]. Pauli defined connection broadly, moving beyond her own exclusion. She wrote, “I intend to destroy segregation by positive and embracing methods. When my brothers try to draw a circle to exclude me, I shall draw a larger circle to include them” [10].

Research shows we are wired for connection [11], confirming our need for family and friends. Beyond this most intimate circle, relationships I’ve built with colleagues have enriched my life both professionally and personally. Through my network, I’ve received jobs and found unicorns to hire, stimulated my thinking and received invaluable career advice. I’ve also traipsed around multiple foreign cities with colleagues, chased their toddlers in bare feet and found comfort in a familiar face at my father’s funeral. Connection is a gift we can receive, but it is also an opportunity to expand our horizons by connecting with people who look and think differently than we do.

ABCs may get you to the table, but we also need to build bigger tables, widen the circle invited, and ensure all at the table are both heard and feel like they belong. One reason you’ve most likely never heard of Pauli Murray, in spite of her jaw-dropping accomplishments, is that the intersections of her race, gender and sexuality limited her seat at those tables. The ABCs can also help expand the table so that future Paulis are not lost to history. Ask for others to be seated and given credit for their contributions, support paths built outside the norm and be intentional about creating environments so that all those seated feel that they belong.

References & Notes

1. Retroactive gendering is problematic for multiple reasons, but she had female partners and would likely today be considered either transgender or nonbinary.
2. Steve Rose, 2021, “‘How is Pauli Murray not a household name?’ The extraordinary life of the US’s most radical activist,” The Guardian, Sept. 17, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/sep/17/how-is-pauli-murray-not-a-household-name-the-extraordinary-life-of-the-uss-most-radical-activist.
3. http://andjusticeforall.dconc.gov/gallery_images/pauli-murray-civil-rights-and-womens-rights-activist/
4. https://history.unc.edu/2020/07/pauli-murray-hall-uncs-departments-of-history-political-science-and-sociology-and-the-curriculum-on-peace-war-and-defense-begin-the-renaming-of-hamilton-hall/
5. Kathryn Schulz, 2017, “The many lives of Pauli Murray,” The New Yorker, April 17, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/the-many-lives-of-pauli-murray.
6. Dreber, A., Heikensten, E. and Säve-Söderbergh, J., 2022, “Why do women ask for less?,” Labour Economics, Vol. 78, Article no. 102204.
7. https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/8/resources/4874
8. Patricia Bell-Scott, 2017, “The Firebrand and the First Lady,” New York: Vintage Books.
9. Anne Firor Scott, , 2008, “Pauli Murray & Caroline Ware,” Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press.
10. Murray, P., 1945, “An American credo,” Common Ground, Winter, pp. 22-24.
11. Matthew D. Lieberman, 2014, “Social: Why our brains are wired to connect,” New York: Crown Publishing Group.