6/19/2019
By Dee Wallis
One recent lovely Saturday morning a group from Nativity joined a walking tour of downtown Durham to explore Pauli Murray’s home, family and history. Pauli Murray, the first black, woman, lesbian Episcopal priest, grew up in a house built by her grandfather that was full of family, expectations, work, and achievements. That house is now the center of a history project that aims to protect her legacy of civil rights activism and promote the justice that she worked for during her life. The Pauli Murray Project is an active effort to preserve her home and legacy, and to involve the community in understanding this important history. The Project presents animated walking tours beginning at the house and meandering around other important sites, as young actors, dancers and historians bring this all to life.
I found the presentations to be unexpectedly vivid and moving. The young, black actors who portrayed Pauli and members of her family in their neighborhood brought to life an experience that we can only imagine. Pauli came from an interracial family when that was scandalous. They achieved prosperity when prosperous blacks were severely repressed. She achieved education, accomplishment and respect when those were routinely denied to women, blacks and gays. We saw for our own eyes a bit of how that might have looked and felt. We walked, we sang, we saw details, and our imaginations were engaged.
Next year, the Pauli Murray Project hopes to open her home as a historic monument and as a resource for social justice. You can learn more about this at https://paulimurrayproject.org. You can also learn more about this historic home at https://savingplaces.org/places/pauli-murray-house. And you can learn more about the walking tours, and perhaps book one of your own by clicking here.
In addition, all are invited to the Annual Pauli Murray Service at St. Titus Episcopal Church in Durham on July 1st at 7PM. This is a community wide gathering to lift up the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray at 400 S. Moline Street, Durham. Bishop Sam Rodman will celebrate and preach. The purpose of the service is to honor Pauli Murray as a saint, since the Episcopal Church voted in 2012 to include her in Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints. She will be honored every July 1 on the church calendar. St. Titus’ Episcopal Church is the church Rev. Dr. Murray attended while growing up in Durham.
