The life story of Pauli Murray was recently highlighted by the New York Historical Society. The child of an interracial couple growing up in North Carolina, Pauli understood the cruelty of the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow laws. She graduated high school at fifteen and enrolled in Hunter College in New York City, a racially integrated school. While attending Hunter College, Murray began cutting her hair short and wearing pants instead of skirts. She began to see herself as a man. She spent hours at counseling due to mental breakdowns. There were very few supports for anyone who did not align with society's expectations at the time. As a poor woman of color she saw firsthand how race and gender dictate the way people are treated in society.
In 1938, she enrolled at Howard University to continue her education. While attending Howard University she formulated the concept of Jane Crow to describe the double discrimination of black women. A turning point in her life was when she was appointed the first African American Deputy Attorney General for the state of California. Her experience as Attorney General brought her into contact with many civil rights leaders and inspired her to write a book on the complexities of legal segregation.
