My Name is Pauli Murray: trailer

US civil rights documentary My Name is Pauli Murray screens on Amazon Prime next month.

Murray was an American civil rights activist who became a lawyer, women’s rights activist, author and became the first African-American woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest.

Fifteen years before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat, a full decade before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned separate-but-equal legislation, Pauli Murray was already knee-deep fighting for social justice. A pioneering attorney, activist, priest and dedicated memoirist, Murray shaped landmark litigation—and consciousness— around race and gender equity. As an African American youth raised in the segregated South— who was also wrestling with broader notions of gender identity—Pauli understood, intrinsically, what it was to exist beyond previously accepted categories and cultural norms. Both Pauli’s personal path and tireless advocacy foreshadowed some of the most politically consequential issues of our time. Told largely in Pauli’s own words, My Name is Pauli Murray is a candid recounting of that unique and extraordinary journey.

91 Minutes
Directed by Betsy West and Julie Cohen
Produced by Talleah Bridges McMahon

Friday 1 October on Amazon Prime Video.