, Pauli Murray,
Mary Bunting; seated, l to r,
Alma Lutz and
Betty Friedan Murray applied to a PhD program in sociology at the
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in 1938, but was rejected because of her race. All schools and other public facilities in the state were segregated by state law, as was the case across the South. The case was broadly publicized in both white and black newspapers. Murray wrote to officials ranging from the university president to President Roosevelt, releasing their responses to the media in an attempt to embarrass them into action. The NAACP initially was interested in the case, but later declined to represent her in court, perhaps fearing that her long residence in New York state weakened her case. NAACP leader
Roy Wilkins opposed representing her because Murray had already released her correspondence, which he considered "not diplomatic". Concerns about her sexuality also may have played a role in the decision; Murray often wore pants rather than the customary skirts of women and was open about her relationships with women. In early 1940, Murray was walking the streets in Rhode Island, distraught after "the disappearance of a woman friend". She was taken into custody by police. She was transferred to
Bellevue Hospital in New York City for psychiatric treatment. In March, Murray left the hospital with Adelene McBean, her roommate and girlfriend, and took a bus to Durham to visit her aunts. In
Petersburg, Virginia, the two women moved out of broken seats in the black (and back) section of the bus, where state
segregation laws mandated they sit, and into the white section. Inspired by a conversation they had been having about
Gandhian
civil disobedience, the two women refused to return to the rear even after the police were called. They were arrested and jailed. Murray and McBean initially were defended by the NAACP, but when the pair were convicted only of
disorderly conduct rather than violating segregation laws, the organization ceased to represent them. The
Workers' Defense League (WDL), a
socialist labor rights organization that also was beginning to take civil rights cases, paid her fine. A few months later the WDL hired Murray for its administrative committee. With the WDL, Murray became active in the case of
Odell Waller, a black Virginia sharecropper sentenced to death for killing his white landlord, Oscar Davis, during an argument. The WDL argued that Davis had cheated Waller in a settlement and as their argument grew more heated, Waller had shot Davis in legitimate fear of his life. Murray toured the country raising funds for Waller's appeal. She wrote to First Lady
Eleanor Roosevelt on Waller's behalf. Roosevelt in turn wrote to Virginia Governor
Colgate Darden, asking him to guarantee that the trial was fair; she later persuaded the president to privately request Darden to commute the death sentence. Through this correspondence, Murray and Eleanor Roosevelt began a friendship that would last until the latter's death two decades later. Despite the efforts of the WDL and the Roosevelts, however, the governor did not commute Waller's sentence. Waller was executed on July 2, 1942.
Howard and Berkeley Murray's trial on charges stemming from the bus incident and her experience with the Waller case inspired a career in civil rights law. In 1941, she began attending
Howard University law school. Murray was the only woman in her law school class, and she became aware of
sexism at the school, which she labeled "Jane Crow"—alluding to
Jim Crow, the system of racial discriminatory state laws oppressing African Americans. On Murray's first day of class, one professor,
William Robert Ming, remarked that he did not know why women went to law school. She was infuriated. In 1942, while still in law school, Murray joined the
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). That year she published an article, "Negro Youth's Dilemma", that challenged
segregation in the US military, which continued during the
Second World War. She also participated in
sit-ins challenging several Washington, DC, restaurants with discriminatory seating policies. These activities preceded the more widespread sit-ins during the
civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Murray was elected chief justice of the Howard Court of Peers, the highest student position at Howard, and in 1944 she graduated as valedictorian, first in her class. She received a Rosenwald fellowship from the
Rosenwald Fund , established by
Julius Rosenwald, to continue post-graduate work. She wanted to attend
Harvard Law but they did not accept women at that time. Murray was thus rejected, despite a letter of support from sitting President
Franklin D. Roosevelt. Murray wrote in response, "I would gladly change my sex to meet your requirements, but since the way to such change has not been revealed to me, I have no recourse but to appeal to you to change your minds. Are you to tell me that one is as difficult as the other?" Murray undertook post-graduate work at the
School of Law at the
University of California, Berkeley. Her master's degree thesis was entitled "The Right to Equal Opportunity in Employment", which argued that "the right to work is an inalienable right". It was published in Berkeley Law's flagship
California Law Review. == Professional career ==