“If anyone should ask a Negro woman in
America what has been her greatest achievement,
her honest answer would be, ‘I survived!”
Personal note: I had the good fortune of having The Dr. Reverend Pauli Murray as a personal mentor as a child. I learned so much from her and will always be grateful for having had the opportunity,
She was the first Black, female, Episcopal priest. And she also happened to be a priest at the church I attended growing up. She was a poet, a lawyer, an activist, a champion of human rights, and a co-founder of NOW.
Her book Proud Shoes predated Roots and is a remarkable chronicle of a Black American family from the nightmare of pre-Civil War slavery through the grueling reality of Reconstruction.
