Listen Lord: We Hate it Here - Day Fourteen

Praying with Pauli Murray

“Give me a song of hope - And a world where I can sing it. Give me a song of faith - And a people to believe in it. Give me a song of kindliness - And a country where I can live it. Give me a song of hope and love…”

This week we are praying with the saints in the history of Black resistance and resilience. Paul Murray was born Anna Pauline Murray in Baltimore, on November 20th 1910. She transitioned to rest with the ancestors July 1st, 1985. In 1977 Murray became the first African American woman to become a Episcopal priest. A timeline of her life in brief:

1914 – Pauli Murray moved to Durham to live with her aunt after whom she was named, Pauline Fitzgerald Dame. Agnes Fitzgerald Murray, Pauli’s mother, had died of a cerebral hemorrhage and her father, William Murray, was a graduate of Howard University. William was unable to care for their six children because of crippling lifelong issues brought about by typhoid fever.

1923 – William Murray was murdered by a guard at Crownsville State Hospital, where he was confined.

1933 – She graduates from Hunter College and goes to work for the Works Project Admission (WPA), Workers Defense League and as a teacher in the NYC Remedial Reading Project.

1938 – She attempts to gain admission as a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is rejected due to her race. The NAACP supported Pauli Murray in challenging this policy however the NAACP decides not to pursue the case because of Pauli Murray’s New York resident status.

1940 – Pauli Murray joins the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), a Christian organization.  She is arrested and jailed for protesting Virginia law requiring segregation on buses. She refused to sit on broken seats at the back of the bus.  She was traveling back to Durham for the Easter holiday with her friend Adelene McBean.

1941 – She entered Howard Law School and encounters overt sex discrimination from faculty and students. While a student she participates in restaurant sit-ins attempting to desegregate these public facilities in African-American communities.

1942 – Odell Waller is executed.  Pauli Murray writes a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on behalf of outraged leaders.  She criticizes the presidents’ failure to improve conditions for black southerners.

1944 – Pauli Murray and fellow students from Howard University take part in a silent demonstration at a Washington D.C. cafeteria.  The students are eventually served, however, the president of Howard orders them to suspend further demonstrations.

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June 1944 – Pauli Murray graduates from Howard Law School first in her class (and the only female). The usual reward for graduating in this position is a prestigious fellowship at Harvard University. She applies for admission to Harvard Law School’s graduate program but is rejected because of her gender despite having President Roosevelt (an alumni of Harvard) write a letter to the president of the University on her behalf.  She enrolls at University of California’s Boalt Hall Law School to work on a graduate degree in law.

1961 – John F. Kennedy appoints Murray to the President’s Commission on the Status of Women Committee (PCSW) on Civil and Political rights.  Works with A. Phillip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and Martin L. King, Jr. on civil rights.

1964 – US Civil Rights Act passed.  Murray co-authors “Jane Crow and the Law: Sex discrimination and Title VII,” in which she draws parallels between sex-based discrimination with Jim Crow laws.

After Murray was ordained as a priest, she focused her life on writing, continued to work for civil rights, and was devoted in ministry to the sick. Throughout her life, Murray’s exploration and expansion of gender identity was integral to vocation and movement work. 

In 2018, Pauli Murray was given a day of commemoration, July 2nd, as a permanent part of the Episcopal Church calendar. Through many dangers, toils and snares, St. Pauli refused to give up. We echo the prayer of St. Pauli this morning, lifting our eyes beyond the hills for help, and for hope. 

Let’s pray together.

Great God of help and healing, we are coming to you to find hope this morning. We pray mercy for all your children trapped in a time loop of loneliness and sorrow. We pray rescue for all your children stuck in places where they can’t escape abuse or neglect. We pray revelation and provision for everyone who is able to liberate themselves from mistreatment in this crisis. Lead Your children to a rock that higher. Lead us away from our doubts and depressions, lead us into hope for every good gift You have promised, into remembrance for every good gift You have already placed in our hands.

Listen, Lord; we need You. We are wounded by the news that storms are now stacked upon the global pandemic. We are grieved at the intersections of essential business workers and healthcare providers. Our aunties who work in clinics and assisted living. Our sisters who are social workers, our brothers who work in warehouses, our friends who work in hospitals. Our young people who are out of school and are not safe in their homes. They are caught in storms. Will You speak peace to them? Will You appear this morning and guide them into Your grace? And Lord if You would, sustain all of us with hope. 

**silent mediation and remembrance for people who have passed away: from or fighting COVID-19**


Speak this section out loud:

Hope is a crushed stalk

Between clenched fingers

Hope is a bird’s wing

Broken by a stone.

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Hope is a word in a tuneless ditty —

A word whispered with the wind,

A dream of forty acres and a mule,

A cabin of one’s own and a moment to rest,

A name and place for one’s children

And children’s children at last . . .

Hope is a song in a weary throat.

Give me a song of hope

And a world where I can sing it.

Give me a song of faith

And a people to believe in it.

Give me a song of kindliness

And a country where I can live it.

Give me a song of hope and love

And a brown girl’s heart to hear it.

Dark Testament Verse 8, by Pauli Murray

**silent meditation for people at risk of racist violence and bias-based medical neglect**

A song of hope, a song of faith, a song of victory, a song of life. How we need the God who sees to come and sing over us today. Will you show up amidst our sorrow songs this morning, O God? Will you prescribe some bright spring greens to our blues? Listen Lord, we hate it here, but we know that you are Love. Transform us by Your power this morning. In our weakness, show yourself strong. Amen.

Scriptures: Psalm 18// Ezekiel 37

Songs: Hope Saved My Life, Brian Courtney Wilson // Solid Rock, Walter Hawkins // Hope, Twista & Faith Evans

Read more about Pauli Murray

https://paulimurrayfoundation.com/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/the-many-lives-of-pauli-murray

Images: Soul Ties by  Kevin Cole // Portrait of Pauli Murray

Michelle Higgins