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    Song in a Weary Throat: Memoir of an American Pilgrimage
    Song in a Weary Throat: Memoir of an American Pilgrimage
    Song in a Weary Throat: Memoir of an American Pilgrimage
    Audiobook19 hours

    Song in a Weary Throat: Memoir of an American Pilgrimage

    Written by Pauli Murray and Patricia Bell-Scott

    Narrated by Allyson Johnson

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Poet, memoirist, labor organizer, and Episcopal priest, Pauli Murray helped transform the law of the land. Arrested in 1940 for sitting in the whites-only section of a Virginia bus, Murray propelled that life-defining event into a Howard law degree and a fight against "Jane Crow" sexism. Her legal brilliance was pivotal to the overturning of Plessy v. Ferguson, the success of Brown v. Board of Education, and the Supreme Court's recognition that the equal protection clause applies to women; it also connected her with such progressive leaders as Eleanor Roosevelt, Thurgood Marshall, Betty Friedan, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Now Murray is finally getting long-deserved recognition: the first African American woman to receive a doctorate of law at Yale, her name graces one of the university's new colleges. Handsomely republished with a new introduction, Murray's remarkable memoir takes its rightful place among the great civil rights autobiographies of the twentieth century.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateJul 31, 2018
    ISBN9781684412075
    Song in a Weary Throat: Memoir of an American Pilgrimage

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    Reviews for Song in a Weary Throat

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      As the tags I added to this review show, Pauli Murray was deeply involved in making history throughout much of the twentieth century. In addition to her accomplishments as activist, attorney, academic and priest, she was a graceful, honest writer with a passion for getting the detail straight and a reliable sense of when to put herself front and center and when to step aside in telling of her life. This is one of the most fascinating autobiographies I have ever read and deserves to be an American classic.
    • 5/5
      I first read about Pauli Murray while researching women abolitonists and Civil Rights leaders for my quilt I Will Lift My Voice Like A Trumpet. I was pleased to be granted access to the e-galley of Pauli's memoir, first published in 1987, now available in a new edition. The forward is by Patricia Bell-Scott, author of The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Justice.Pauli was born in 1910 and was raised by her school teacher aunt. Pauli was a gifted student who attended Hunter College in New York City. During the Depression she found employment with the WPA as a teacher and began to publish her poetry and a novel. She found a mentor in Stephen Vincent Benet.During the war years and early 1950s Pauli became involved with Civil Rights, challenging segregation, and formed a relationship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1941 she began her law studies at Howard University and helped to form CORE and the development of passive resistance.Harvard law school would not accept Pauli based on her sex. She attended the University of California Boalt School of Law. Her thesis was on equal opportunity in employment. With her color and sex against her, Pauli had trouble making a living practicing law.In 1956 she published a book on her family history, Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family. She taught law in Ghana for several years. Back in the US she resumed work in Civil Rights and became active as a feminist and was an organizer for NOW.In her later life, Pauli worked for equal opportunity for women as church leaders. She became the first African American woman ordained to the Episcopal priesthood.Pauli saw huge changes in her lifetime. At her birth she was labeled colored, but chose to the designation Negro. During the rise of black power movements she resisted the term black, resenting its lower case nomenclature. She was a pacifist and anti-segregationist who had trouble with the rise of Black Power movements and the younger generation's demanded for separate campus organizations. Early she was attracted to Socialism and spent her last years as in the priesthood.The memoir is filled with details about the work for Civil Rights prior to the more known stories of Rosa Park and Martin Luther King, Jr. There are vivid descriptions of traveling in the Jim Crow south, the closed doors to her race and her sex, the poverty she and her educated family endured.Pauli's voice is direct and open. She admits to her ignorance and mistakes, her learning curves and limitations. Her accomplishments speak for her determination and courage.It was wonderful to hear, in her own voice, Pauli's amazing life.I received a free egalley from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.