Women's and Gender Studies Program

"Firebrand": The Story of Pauli Murray, an Activist in Academe

A Lecture by Joyce Antler '63
Samuel B. Lane Professor of American Jewish History and Culture



with a performance of Pauli Murray by Robin Parks-McConnell, MFA '93

Wednesday
February 11, 2004
4:00 pm
Rapaporte Treasure Hall

From 1968 to 1973, Pauli Murray taught at Brandeis in the American Studies Department, where she held the Louis Stulberg Chair in Law and Politics. She offered the university's first courses in Women's Studies, African-American Studies, and Legal Studies. A leading civil rights and feminist activist, Murray was instrumental in achieving the passage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act banning sex discrimination along with racial discrimination and in creating the National Organization for Women. Her pioneering documentation of state race laws served as the "Bible" in the struggle against desegregation, a battle she had fought even earlier when in the 1940s she refused to move to the back of a segregated bus and inaugurated sit-ins to protest racial discrimination. An editor of the forthcoming volume of Notable American Women recently wrote, "When historians look back on 20th century America," it may be that "all roads will lead to Pauli Murray."

This talk explains why Murray believed that her five years at Brandeis were "the most exciting, tormenting, satisfying, embattled, frustrated, and at times triumphant period" of her career.

The Brandeis Women's Studies Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series will feature two presentations each year for the Brandeis community by Brandeis professors who are internationally recognized scholars of women's and gender studies.