The Erasure of Black Women From History Needs to Stop.
This post was written by Toiya Smith, UNCF Fellow at Beloved Community
“True community is based upon equality, mutuality, and reciprocity. It affirms the richness of individual diversity as well as the common human ties that bind us together.” ― Pauli Murray
Before several professional athletes began to kneel during the national anthem, in 2014, a Black girl in Texas had started her own protest ritual of sitting during the pledge of allegiance.
Fifteen years before Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus, Pauli Murray was arrested for the same action in Petersburg, VA.
Twenty years before the Greensboro sit-ins, Pauli Murray organized restaurant sit-ins in Washington, D.C.
Particularly in this political period, it’s important to ask: What does our selective “seeing” of Black women and girls say about our society?
Today is the 106th birthday of Thurgood Marshall, who was not only the first African American Supreme Court Justice, but an integral figure in the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education. Although he is a triumphant leader in the outlawing of segregation, many people fail to realize that he did not do this alone. In fact, he likely would not have received such great recognition without the works of a revolutionary civil rights feminist, Pauli Murray.
Human rights champion and queer saint Anna Pauline (Pauli) Murray (November 20, 1910 - July 1, 1985) is a renowned civil rights pioneer, feminist, author, lawyer and the first Black woman ordained as an Episcopal priest. Throughout her career as both a Lawyer and a Priest, she managed to publish some of the most impactful civil rights literature of her time including numerous law journals and a reference book titled States’ Laws on Race and Color (1951) — which is the work that guided Thurgood Marshall in the three years leading up to the Brown v. Board of Education decision.
Pauli Murray’s professional accomplishments are profound. Her poetry is rich, and her resilience is remarkable. She coined the term “confrontation by typewriter” to describe her writing style and she didn’t fail to live up to the description. Murray’s arguments about race discrimination and the “separate but equal” ideology were revolutionary and endlessly brave during her time. She was a force to be reckoned with, yet too many of us have never heard about Pauli Murray or her career.
A queer black feminist, she dedicated her work to challenging preconceived notions of race, gender, sexuality and religion.
How many calendars honor her birthday as a holiday? Where is her history written? And Pauli Murray isn’t the only one.
In fact, a little known truth about the Brown v. Board of Education court case was that it was filed by a total of nine plaintiffs and their children. It was decidedly named Brown v. Board when eight of the pairings were mother and child and one pairing, the Brown family, were father and child. They wanted to make sure a male figure was attributed going into the case, assuming this fact would result in a stronger chance of winning.
This erasure of Black women has been and continues to be persistent in our society.
It Is Our Responsibility To See The Full Spectrum Of Black Womanhood And That Means We Must Be Honest About The Contributions Black Women Have Made To Society, And About The Ways America Strips Black Women Of Visibility For Such Contributions.
Pauli Murray not receiving proper recognition for her accomplishments and significant impact in Thurgood Marshall’s career, as well as her own, is one of countless examples.
As we think about Black leaders and their contributions to society, let us not forget the significant role intersectionality plays. A woman who is Black is navigating more than just womanhood and more than just race. The scholar and activist Anna Julia Cooper spoke to this point over a century ago, in 1892, saying that “[Black women are] confronted by both a woman question and a race problem, and is yet an unknown or an unacknowledged factor in both.”
Happy Birthday Thurgood. We are so thankful for all that you’ve done, but we need to start upholding a history that gives credit, especially to Black women, where credit is due.
Resources:
The Many Lives of Pauli Murray
Justice Thurgood Marshall Profile — Brown v. Board of Education Re-enactment
Toiya Smith is the Equity in Schools fellow for Beloved Community and currently resides in New Orleans, LA. She is a senior at Dillard University studying Urban Studies and Public Policy.