By: Mary Monroe Kolek  Buy the Book

New to our branch book club? We welcome members and their guests. Email me – click here-  for talk Zoom link| include AAUW book talk in your subject line

Our next selection for our book talk is Proud Shoes by noted civil rights leader and activist, Pauli Murray. Pauli spent her childhood in Durham, which is the site of the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice.

First published in 1956, Proud Shoes is the remarkable true story of slavery, survival, and miscegenation in the South from the pre-Civil War era through the Reconstruction. Written by Pauli Murray the legendary civil rights activist and one of the founders of NOW, Proud Shoes chronicles the lives of Murray’s maternal grandparents. Reading about Pauli Murray’s life through her words allows us to develop an appreciation for all she accomplished and for her contributions to today’s struggles and victories.

If you are not yet aware of Pauli Murray this is an excerpt from the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice website (https://www.paulimurraycenter.com/), something I definitely recommend you visit:

“Pauli Murray lived one of the most remarkable lives of the twentieth century. S/he was the first Black person to earn a JSD (Doctor of the Science of Law) degree from Yale Law School, a founder of the National Organization for Women and the first Black woman to be ordained an Episcopal priest.” 

Pauli Murray’s legal arguments and interpretation of the US Constitution were winning strategies for public school desegregation, women’s rights in the workplace, and an extension of rights to LGBTQ+ people based on Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.