When I saw “On the Basis of Sex” (2018), I noticed one scene where it appeared that a black woman was coaching Ruth Bader Ginsburg and immediately looked up the character’s name on IMDb: Pauli Murray. I went to Harvard Law School and considered myself fairly educated, but I had never heard of Murray, but once I did, the name stuck in my mind, a mind notorious for forgetting names. It did not hurt that Murray looked as if they could be related to me. Even though my wardrobe is more feminine, on an ordinary day, we could clothes swap. I would not learn more until I had an opportunity to see “My Name is Pauli Murray” (2021), a documentary about this pre civil rights era pioneer and polymath, a multipotentialite, Renaissance person: poet, lawyer, seminarian.
Julie Cohen and Betsy West directed “My Name is Pauli Murray” and are best known for their prior collaboration, “RBG” (2018). Cohen also cowrote the documentary with Talleah Bridges McMahon, who usually produces PBS documentaries, and Cinque Northern, who worked nearly two decades as a documentary editor for television and film. Too many cooks do not spoil the broth, but instead craft an intimate, long-overdue love letter by using archival film, audio recordings of Murray dictating their autobiography, montages of personal photographs interspersed with Murray’s handwritten and typed work.
“My Name is Pauli Murray” starts at the end of Murray’s life with Karen Rouse Ross, Murray’s grandniece, discovering that her relative is an accomplished historical figure as Ross recreates the moment and filmmakers depict Ross reviewing them at Harvard’s Schlesinger library. It then jumps back to 1940 and introduces Murray’s most relatable act of protest, refusing to vacate a seat for white passengers and obey Jim Crow rules of segregation while riding a bus fifteen years before Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks. The film subsequently takes a chronological approach and introduces Murray’s parents and family. The family’s racial ambiguity and permission to be a “boy girl” influenced Murray’s unusual career path and view of human rights.
The film’s timeline never gets confusing because the filmmakers delineate sections by freezing film footage or taking a photograph then stenciling in color, putting the year and location on the screen and providing a quick orientation of the number of years prior to a historical landmark that Murray took a decisive action to fight discrimination. Murray’s life is a story of firsts: trying to integrate educational institutions as a black person or a woman, an outsider’s perception of Murray’s gender, developing legal arguments to fight such discrimination and creating the legal foundation for Thurgood Marshall and Ginsburg’s arguments before the Supreme Court of the United States, which would later contribute to Marshall and Ginsburg’s appointment as judges to the highest court of the land. Murray was the United States’ founding parent, a person who developed significant intellectual arguments which would later become the bedrock of United States’ ideals and human rights even if it was not widely known or recognized.
“My Name is Pauli Murray” balances the traditional talking head approach of interviewing experts such as historians and biographers by also including interviews with relatives, friends, students, and former colleagues. It makes the viewer feel as if we are hearing about the life of a relatable, real person, not a far-removed historical figure. Many of their contemporaries were oblivious to Murray’s achievements. Also including Murray’s voice from dictation of Murray’s autobiography manuscript, makes it feel as if Murray participated in making the film. The filmmakers deliberately elicit the experts to relate their emotional reaction to researching Murray so their work does not feel like a dispassionate intellectual exercise, but as if they are talking about a person that they know and admire, a dearly departed friend and mentor.
“My Name is Pauli Murray” treats Murray as a three-dimensional person with problems and seeks to highlight aspects of Murray’s personality that a less confident filmmaker or admirer may seek to brush under the rug. As a person ahead of their time, Murray suffered from depression, which may be genetic, but Murray had ample environmental factors to exacerbate that condition. Murray had gender dysphoria which most people, including medical professionals, dismissed as a valid concern so others described Murray as a woman, and Murray had no choice but to navigate public life as one. Trapped with the gender classification of woman, people would not permit Murray full entry to all career opportunities available to men with objectively less qualifications. As a black person, Murray faced similar obstacles, but at least that category was accurate though the discrimination that followed was not. Murray’s sexual orientation towards heterosexual women reduced possible romantic partners. Murray’s frustration over not being able to live fully fueled their every action.
“My Name is Pauli Murray” also tackled Murray’s practical concerns such as physical and financial security. Just because Murray was confident about their intellect does not mean that Murray was impervious to attack, i.e. micro and macroaggressions. Murray describes enduring attack as “unbearable.” Murray noted, “The business of oppression is the business of not respecting one’s personhood.” Even though our experiences are dramatically different, and Murray is far more brilliant, I related to Murray’s struggle to survive as oneself (and the books). There is no way to opt out of society. Unlike Murray’s fellow MacDowell Colony Fellow, James Baldwin, Murray could not escape this oppression by leaving the United States and soon had to return home. Murray’s uniqueness placed them in danger, and the United States posed less of a threat because at least here, parts of the establishment were hospitable.
Dolores Chandler, a Former Director of the Pauli Murray Center, said that they felt “robbed of a part of my history.” “My Name is Pauli Murray” restores that history, but is far from a comprehensive biography. It omits the times that the NAACP declined to fight on Murray’s behalf, Murray’s teen attempt to marry and try to be a woman, their dad’s murder, which probably influenced their anti-lynching work, the backlash for reading a Communist book, which poses the question of what Murray’s view of economic systems was. The film touches on Murray being pro-union but shies away from anything that could be considered controversial now. With a bit more scrutiny, it becomes more apparent that the documentary pulls a few punches that Murray did not. It only has a run time of ninety-one minutes so maybe these are not flaws, but wise editing choices if some of these issues were less central to Murray’s identity.
“My Name is Pauli Murray” rushes through Murray’s spiritual journey to becoming a priest. The filmmakers inject some humor as their students initially consider Murray antiquated and even a sellout as the civil rights struggle transforms. There could be a television series, preferably an Amazon Studios “sitcom” about how Murray wins them over despite becoming a relic.
“My Name is Pauli Murray” makes me want to read Murray’s work so it is a perfect introduction. It should be required viewing for every American
