Proud Shoes

I might not have written my own family history without the example of this book. I was enthralled when I read this compelling, well-researched, and well-written “family memoir” (as Murray calls it) years ago.

Everything about it drew me in, Murray’s compelling voice, the depth of her research, her descriptions of her relatives, and the vanished world they inhabited. Magisterial in every sense of the word, this is family history as American history, by a woman who was a lawyer, activist, and, in 1977, at age 67, the first black woman ordained an Episcopal priest.

Her book continues to inspire… show more.

This is a must-read memoir about the childhood of one of America’s most important and least recognized human rights heroes, Pauli Murray. After the loss of her mother in 1914, Murray moved to Durham, NC to live with her aunt and grandparents. The family was Black, White, and Indigenous, giving Murray a unique perspective on what it means to be an American and grapple with what she described as both the “degradation and dignity” of her ancestors. We might now call Murray transgender since she later came to believe that she should have been born a man. I go back… show more.