Pauli Murray: Through Outrage, We Remember
See this piece on Penn State’s Rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement Page
Abstract: Pauli Murray’s name is one that often gets lost in the mix of civil rights activists like
Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and W.E.B. DuBois. This is, in part, because Murray was
born a woman, meaning her1 voice was not unusually overshadowed by the men of her time. It is
also in part because she did not associate herself as a woman. In fact, Murray often conveyed
that she felt like a man trapped in a woman’s body. This struggle with identity and frustration
over the injustices she faced throughout her life, has made such an influential and prominent
figure of the civil rights movement an enigma to historians who refrain from telling Murray’s
story because of the challenges it presents. Yet, this struggle with identity and ability to channel
her anger into powerful rhetoric was exactly what made Murray’s words so important. During a
movement that was born out of social injustice in a nation full of people trying to find their
place, Murray’s words echoed the emotions of African American people and inspired the hope
that the future could be one of acceptance, for all humankind.
Introduction
Despite the substantial contributions made to the fight for gender and race equality, the
name “Pauli Murray” often goes forgotten, lost in the sea of scholarship on men’s contribution to
the civil rights movement. Yet, Murray’s is a name deserving of recognition. Not only did she
coin the term “Jane Crow,” become the first woman Episcopal priest, and worked tirelessly for
gender and race equality, she also found a way to express the true emotions that African
American citizens felt throughout the entirety of the nineteenth century and turn it into an art
form that would inspire civil rights activists for years to come.
Why have we never heard the story of Pauli Murray? This was the question I asked
myself in my third year of college when I heard her name for the very first time. For me, untold
names and narratives had become somewhat of a theme throughout my college experience.
Growing up in a small town in Missouri, gender inequality and race discrimination were not
topics that were heavily discussed. In fact, I am not sure I truly understood how little I knew
about American history until I arrived at college four years ago. I sat in classes where names like
Fannie Lou Hamer, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Malcolm X were talked about as commonplace, and
the world that I knew slowly began to crumble around me. Shock turned into confusion,
confusion turned into betrayal, and betrayal turned into anger at the ignorance I had been
blissfully living in for my entire life. How could I have been so blind to the empty narratives I
was told about my country’s history? How could I not see the suffering that was still around me
every day? The answer to these questions came in the spring semester of my junior year in
college when my Women’s Writing and Rhetoric class started a module on a woman named
Pauli Murray. A woman whose life was so intensely private and complicated, that many
historians did not know how to tell her story, so most of them did not. It dawned on me that the
fear of telling complex stories or stories that might reflect American history in a negative light,
too often prevents us from really understanding where we come from.
When I learned of her story in the one week my class spent studying Pauli Murray’s
poetry, I became enthralled by the life that she lived and the power behind her words. I had
always had a deep respect for poetry, but there was something about the subtle strength weaved
throughout hers that resonated with me. As I took this class just a few months after the Black
Lives Matter movement swept the nation, I saw so much resemblance between the emotions and
struggles Murray wrote about to the state of the nation I was living in. What I saw was a woman
who was struggling with her identity in a country that was filled with political strife and
inequality. Through further research, I discovered that most of Murray’s writings were calm and
valued logical reason; it was her poetry that was a reflection of her true emotions. What follows
is an analysis on how Murray was able to encompass both the private and political struggles she
dealt with in her poetry and evoke change during the civil rights movement in a nation divided.
Specifically, I will seek to understand how Murray’s poetry reflected the anger of African
American citizens throughout the nineteenth century, demanded accountability from white
citizens, and set the precedent for the fight for racial and gender equality.
Background
Before I begin an evaluation of Murray’s poetry, it is important to first have background
on her life. She was born in Baltimore, Maryland on November 20, 1910, to a self-proclaimed
educated elite family. Many of her family members were teachers and from the outside looking
in, Murray’s life circumstances seemed to be better than most African American families in the
early twentieth century. However, tragedy was quick to strike and uproot the life of young
Murray. Her mother died when she was just four years old, and her father was tragically beaten
to death by a white guard after an extensive stay in a mental institution in 1923. An orphan at just
thirteen years old, Murray was sent to live at her maternal grandparent's house in North Carolina,
where she was then raised by her aunts, Pauline Fitzgerald Dame and Sarah Fitzgerald.
It was her aunt, Pauline, that would instill in Pauli many of the traits she would become
known for later in life. She taught her to be fiercely independent and to make up her own mind
about life. From a young age, Murray was an astute learner, grasping the injustices that African
Americans faced every day, quickly. It became clear to her that she was living in a world that
used scare tactics to instill fear in black Americans in order to ensure their oppression. Her
fearlessness in seeking out information eventually paid off when she attended Hunter College’s
Brooklyn Annex where she was introduced to an English professor named Catherine Reigart.
Reigart discovered something in Murray that she had yet to discover in herself: the ability to
write. Reigart quite possibly changed the course of Murray’s life with one sentence, telling her,
“You have the unique opportunity to influence a continent” (Rosalind 34). What came from this
advice was a newfound realization that words could have power, and Murray wasted no time
wielding them.
Murray’s anger over the injustices all around her only grew as she got older. She was
denied admission to the University of North Carolina in 1938 because of the color of her skin
and then denied from Harvard a few years later because of her gender, a gender that she was
struggling to identify with. Despite everything, Murray kept going. She graduated Valedictorian
as the only woman in her class from Howard Law School, earned a master's at the Boalt Hall
School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, became the first black woman to earn a
Ph.D. in juridical science from Yale School of Law, and earned a master’s in divinity from
General Theological Seminary. While she was not one to stay silent when she encountered
injustices, when she put pen to paper, she valued logic and reason over emotional appeals.
Murray would go on to write influential speeches, books, and letters, even securing a friendship
with The First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, through her ability to effectively and articulately write
her ideas. However, Murray was angry. Her life had been a series of challenges because of her
position as an African American woman and there was one form of writing that allowed her to
channel that anger into something powerful: poetry.
Theoretical Framework: Expressing anger through poetry
At a time in our country when there were so many voices speaking out, a creative art
form like poetry was bound to be overshadowed. Yet, many activists found themselves drawn to
the creative art form as a way of expressing the outrage that overwhelmed their daily lives over
the injustices happening throughout the country. Poetry became a way to channel anger into
something beautiful and ambiguous, meant to be interpreted in different ways. As Aristotle
defined it, poetry is an “art which imitates” and the poems produced during the civil rights
movement imitate the emotions of African Americans at that time (Aristotle).
It is through poetry that we can grasp a deeper understanding of the true emotions of
those oppressed. After all, the nineteenth century was a time when racial prejudices were being
supported by baseless and false scientific studies proving the “uncivilized” and “barbaric” nature
of races that were not white (Sainini 30). These harmful stereotypes forced black Americans to
suppress their true emotions for fear of supporting these racist beliefs. This characterization of
black Americans as angry or out of control is one that is still prominent in this day and age,
especially following the Black Lives Matter movement. And still today, thanks to the work of
Pauli Murray and those that she inspired, we see poetry as a means of expressing the outrage of
African American citizens. As Amanda Gorman, a young black woman who delivered a poem
for President Joe Biden’s inauguration stated, “We’ve braved the belly of the beast, We’ve
learned that quiet isn’t always peace, And the norms and notions of what just is, Isn’t always
just-ice” (Gorman).
While many of Pauli Murray’s poems were published prior to the civil rights movement,
they set a precedent for expressing outrage and demanding accountability of white counterparts.
She turned an art form that she utilized for wrestling with the personal, into a weapon loaded for
the political. Her poems published before and during the civil rights movement exuded truth and
inspired African American citizens to feel their anger to its fullest extent and channel it to create
lasting change. Murray’s poetry changed the narrative that anger was a negative and
uncontrollable trait and affirmed that it was necessary for championing growth.
Encouraging Rage and Inspiring a New Generation
To the Oppressors
Now you are strong
And we are but grapes aching with ripeness.
Crush us!
Squeeze from us all the brave life
Contained in these full skins.
But ours is a subtle strength
Potent with centuries of yearning,
Of being kegged and shut away
In dark forgotten places.
We shall endure
To steal your senses
In that lonely twilight
Of your winter’s grief.
Murray originally published this poem in 1939, just one year after being denied from
graduate school at the University of North Carolina on account of her race. Segregation was still
a very real problem in America and from the start of this poem, it is clear Murray’s tone is
strong, directly addressing the oppressor in the first line. She then draws a clear divide between
the oppressor and the oppressed, switching from “you” to “we” in the second line. It becomes
evident that this divide is purposeful, with Murray illustrating the division in America through
her careful use of language. As the poem continues and Murray’s anger builds, this division
becomes a useful tool for Murray to convey her message. The oppressor, who was characterized
as strong in the first line, becomes blind to the subtle strength that has been building in those
“being kegged and shut away in dark forgotten places'' (Murray). The last stanza channels all of
the outrage and frustration that Murray has been building on throughout the poem and remolds it
into a warning to the oppressor and a call to action to the oppressed. The division, which has
been the cause of those who have been oppressed’s anguish, has now become one of their
greatest strengths.
Looking back, Murray’s words were indicative of the fight that was to come in the mid-
nineteenth century. Evaluating this poem, we can identify how ahead of its time it was, reflecting
the emotions that were more ardently expressed in the latter half of the century. While anger is
explicitly expressed in this work, it is how Murray uses anger to elicit other emotions in her
reader that is most notable. As an article evaluating Murray and her legacy states, “To extract the
motivating force of anger from Murray's work is to disembody the power of her fierce hope,
love, and lifelong commitment to the pursuit of justice” (Peppard 31). Just one year after
experiencing racial discrimination to its fullest extent, Murray was able to see the cause of her
challenges as a means of creating change. She invites the oppressed to feel the anger they hold,
to remember the mistreatment they have endured, and to use it to band together with those who
have experienced the same injustices so that they might work towards a future worth fighting for.
While this poem was published prior to the start of the civil rights movement, this was
the beginning of a movement that would serve as a guide and inspire black poets to express their
outrage creatively throughout the century and beyond. Audre Lorde, an African American
woman who would become a well-known civil rights poet, became one of many who carried on
the legacy that Murray started. In a keynote presentation Lorde gave in June of 1981, the ideas
championed by Murray are reflected, with Lorde telling her audience, “But anger expressed and
translated into action in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening
act of clarification, for it is in the painful process of this translation that we identify who are our
allies with whom we have grave differences, and who are our genuine enemies” (Lorde) While
Murray’s poetry worked to inspire a new generation of poets, her work also played a direct role
in political activism as the civil rights movement arrived abruptly to the United States.
Anger as a Means for Activism
Mr. Roosevelt Regrets (Detroit Riot, 1943)
Upon reading PM newspaper’s account of Mr. Roosevelt’s statement on the recent race
clashes: “I share your feeling that the recent outbreaks of violence in widely spread parts
of the country endanger our national unity and comfort our enemies. I am sure that every
true American regrets this.”
What’d you get, black boy,
When they knocked you down in the
gutter,
And they kicked your teeth out,
And they broke your skull with clubs
And they bashed your stomach in?
What’d you get when the police shot
you in the back,
And they chained you to the beds
While they wiped the blood off?
What’d you get when you cried out to
the Top Man?
When you called on the man next to
God, so you thought,
And asked him to speak out to save
you?
What’d the Top Man say, black boy?
“Mr. Roosevelt regrets. . . . . . .”
On June 20, 1943, tensions over racism, poor living conditions, and unequal access to
goods boiled over and approximately 100,000 white and black citizens gathered on Belle Isle to
fight. While police were able to stop the violence by midnight, two false rumors ultimately
provided both the citizens of Detroit with the motive to re-escalate the violence that had
previously been stalled. At around 4 am, a mob of white men gathered near the Roxy Theater
and started attacking black people as they got off the city buses. Violence spread like wildfire
and in a poor attempt to control the riots, President Roosevelt sent over 6,000 army troops in
with orders to shoot to kill if necessary. Thirty-four were killed, nine white and twenty-five
African American (Capeci).
When Murray read a statement given by Mr. Roosevelt after this massacre emphasizing
his “regret” for the events that occurred, she once again channeled her anger into poetry. This
time, however, Murray was making a political statement. Despite her friendship with Eleanor
Roosevelt, Murray’s outrage over the lack of urgency for the racial injustice in the country
moved her to write a poem demanding accountability for the president. Murray appeals to the
emotions of her audience by using repetition to describe in detail how black men and women
were beaten, both by white citizens and police officers. She builds suspense by forming these
descriptions as questions, asking her black brothers and sisters what kind of response they got
when they were blatantly brutalized in the streets of Detroit. In doing so, the last line of this
poem packs a punch, using Roosevelt’s words against him, “Mr. Roosevelt's regrets” (Murray).
To contrast the horrifying descriptions of violence towards African Americans with President
Roosevelt’s formal, unempathetic statement, is powerful. Whereas poems like “To the
Oppressor” were general in their call for change and sought more to inspire, the anger in this
poem is directed specifically at “the man next to God,” or “the Top Man,” otherwise known as
the President of the United States.
This would not be the last time that Murray would use poetry to express her anger and
sadness towards specific instances of racial injustice. In fact, mere months later, Murray
published another poem titled “Harlem Riot, 1943” in response to similar racial violence that
broke out after a white police officer shot and killed an African American soldier. In Murray’s
autobiography, she expressed just how outraged she was over these events, stating, "In my
anguish I realized that I felt the same intensely violent urge to strike back against the
accumulated hurts, insults, and humiliations as did the rioters” (57). While her tone in “Mr.
Roosevelt Regrets” is outraged, her response to the Harlem riot of 1943 is almost defeated,
expressing the weariness that has overcome her. The last lines of the poem express the unknown
of the future, while also suggesting that there is still a fight left to give: “But I am a prophet
without eyes to see; I do not know how we will gain the gates of the city” (Murray). Murray
would continue writing poetry all throughout the civil rights movement, using anger as a means
for activism.
Conclusion
The important work Murray contributed to society did not stop in the 1940s. In fact, it
was only the beginning. When the civil rights movement began in 1954, Pauli Murray was at the
forefront of the fight. Her biography, titled Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family, was
published just two years after the start of the movement and was about her and her family’s
experience with white supremacy and racial discrimination. From there, she worked in a
litigation office, traveled to Ghana and wrote another book, and was appointed by JFK to the
Committee of Civil and Political Rights. Throughout the entirety of the 1960s, Murray dedicated
her life to the cause, working closely with people like Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin, and
A. Philip Randolph. Murray even helped found the National Organization for Women with Betty
Friedan before identifying that the struggles of black women were not being addressed properly.
In 1970, Murray published a book of something that had been in the works for decades.
Dark Testament: And Other Poems included some of her earlier work, such as “To the
Oppressors,” and “Mr. Roosevelt Regrets,” as well as poems she had been writing all throughout
the civil rights movement. The poem for which the book is named, “Dark Testament,” was read
at a Seattle memorial for Martin Luther King Jr. after his passing. The following is an excerpt
from the work that brought over 10,000 people in mourning to their feet, for respect and
appreciation of Murray’s words:
Tear it out of history books!
Bury it in conspiracies of silence!
Fight many wars to suppress it!
But it is written in our faces
Twenty million times over!
We will lay siege, let thunder serve our claim,
For it must be told, endlessly told, and you must hear it.
Listen, white brothers, hear the dirge of history,
And hold out your hand—hold out your hand.
Better our seed rot on the ground
And our hearts burn to ash
Than the years be empty of our imprint (Murray).
These words, written almost a century ago, still hold weight today. All around us, we see
evidence of history being erased. Subjects are being watered down in schools, books are being
banned, and lawmakers are working to erase names, like Pauli Murray, from our history. We
must work to carry our history with us. While not everyone can do this on a large scale, like Ruth
Bader Ginsburg who put Murray’s name on the front page of the Reed v. Reed court case, which
declared gender discrimination unconstitutional, but there are small steps we can take every day
to ensure names like Murray’s never go forgotten (Waxman). Our history is worth remembering.
Names like Pauli Murray are worth remembering. Our anger, our outrage, our desire for a better
tomorrow, are worth remembering.
Works Cited
Aristotle., et al. Poetics. J.M. Dent & Sons, 1934.
Capeci, Dominic J., and Martha Wilkerson. “The Detroit Rioters of 1943: A Reinterpretation.”
Michigan Historical Review, vol. 16, no. 1, 1990, pp. 49–72,
https://doi.org/10.2307/20173210. Accessed 15 Apr. 2022.
Gorman, Amanda, and Oprah Winfrey. The Hill We Climb. Viking, 2021.
Lorde, Audre. “(1981) Audre Lorde, ‘The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism’.”
(1981) Audre Lorde, "The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism" •, 10 Mar.2021, https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/speeches-african-american-
history/1981-audre-lorde-uses-anger-women-responding-racism/.
Murray, Pauli, and Elizabeth Alexander. Dark Testament: And Other Poems. Liveright
Publishing Corporation, a Division of W. W. Norton & Company, 2018.
Murray, Pauli. “Mr. Roosevelt Regrets (Detroit Riot, 1943)” Poetry Foundation, Poetry
Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/147917/mr-roosevelt-regrets.
Murray, Pauli. “To the Oppressors by Pauli Murray.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation,
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/147918/to-the-oppressors-5b9abf248443b.
Murray, Pauli. Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family. BEACON, 2020.
Peppard, Christiana Z. “Poetry, Ethics, and the Legacy of Pauli Murray.” Journal of the Society
of Christian Ethics, vol. 30, no. 1, The Society of Christian Ethics, 2010, pp. 21–43,
https://doi.org/10.5840/jsce201030129.
Rosenberg, Rosalind. Jane Crow : the Life of Pauli Murray. Oxford University Press, 2017.
Saini, Angela. Superior: The Return of Race Science. HARPERCOLLINS INDIA, 2020.
Waxman, Olivia B. “In Unseen Interview, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Honors Pauli Murray.” Time,
Time, 16 Oct. 2020, https://time.com/5896410/ruth-bader-ginsburg-pauli-murray/.