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Pauli Murray: A
Personal and Political Life
by Troy R. Saxby
c.2020, The University of North Carolina Press
$34.95 / higher in Canada
353 pages
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Truth Contributor
Life, if you think about
it, is somewhat like a necklace.
Imagine the first bead is
birth, starting off a chain. This bead represents your fifth
birthday, here's your tenth, graduation, your first job,
your first home, your firstborn. Some beads are larger but
the smaller ones are not unimportant. And so it goes, but
when building that metaphoric chain, as in the new book
Pauli Murray: A Personal and Political Life by Troy
R. Saxby, be aware of the links. |
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Almost from the day she
was born, Annie Pauline Murray was challenged.
When she was three years
old, her pregnant mother died, leaving six children to a
husband who was abusive and mentally ill. Shortly afterward,
Murray's father entered a "psychiatric facility," where he
died when Murray was 12; between those losses, Murray was
taken in and raised by an aunt in a poverty-affected but
"respectable middle-class" household that contained more
mental illness.
Though many of Murray's
Black family members "passed" as white, her closest
guardians "gloried in the achievements of African
Americans." Young Murray had a "rebellious streak," but she
embraced the education her elders demanded, and was driven
to excel: at college, many officials doubted that she could
do the work required to succeed, and they told her so – but
that "streak" made her more determined, which helped her
achieve several college degrees, including one in law. Her
accomplishments were many: Murray was an early feminist, she
worked tirelessly and ingeniously for the Civil Rights
Movement and for social justice, but her successes didn't
buoy her.
Always a "tomboy," Murray
had love affairs with women through the years, but
furtively, given the times and lack of tolerance for
homosexuality. She seemed to embrace that love, but it also
seemed to bother her: she asked doctors if there was
something inside her that was more male than female, as if
she were a "hermaphrodite." This, perhaps, as well as
racism, self-pressure to succeed, confrontationalism, and
mental illness that plagued her family caused "almost annual
breakdowns..."
While it starts out
fascinating, with descriptions of the era in which Murray's
forebears lived and of her earliest years, Pauli Murray
becomes too much, too quickly. It's comprehensive, that's a
fact – author Troy R. Saxby seemed to leave no stone
unturned – but infinitesimal details of Murray's life are
abundant here, every argument, movement, and visit, and that
can be overwhelming.
And yet, there's so much
to glean from this book, so many milestones Saxby says
Murray set, that you almost can't stop reading despite
watching the discomfort, obvious pain, and inner struggle
she endured. Through letters and articles she wrote, readers
get to know Murray as she perceived herself; those personal
peeks are engrossing, especially given the legacy she left
when she died almost exactly 35 years ago.
If you have the patience,
or the ability to skim when overpowered with minutiae,
Pauli Murray is ultimately, absolutely worthwhile.
Especially now, any reader who wants to know more about
social justice pioneers should get a bead on it.
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