About Us

Our Mission

Preserving Pauli Murray, LLC is on a mission to increase an awareness of Black and women's history by sharing the powerful legacy of the life of Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray. We support community and organizational efforts to promote Murray's groundbreaking work by sharing her mostly unknown accomplishments to educational, religious, and community organizations and corporate groups through presentations, podcasts, interviews, and panel discussions.

Our summer institute program for girls and young women in their senior year of high school or freshman year of college focuses on leadership development, college preparation, vocational discernment and holistic services, incorporating culturally relevant instruction inspired by the life, values, work and accomplishments of Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray.

Our goal in the summer program is to equip young women with the tools, knowledge, and confidence to create transformative change in their lives and community. By centering the program on the legacy of Murray, we aim to inspire students to become advocates for justice and leaders in their communities, their careers, and their future endeavors. Lessons are drawn from Murray's life, focusing on themes of social justice, advocacy, and spirituality.

Rosita Stevens-Holsey


Founder & Author

As one of Pauli Murray's nieces, I not only feel it is an honor to be part of enhancing and promoting her legacy, but my responsibility to do so.

I was part of her "Washington, DC family.” I was influenced by her independence, perseverance, determination, and strong will. During my formative years she instilled in me a sense of being an advocate, activist, and feminist. My current work is to support and enhance efforts to promote her legacy by speaking and personal appearances. The world is beginning to know of Pauli Murray and her pioneering work.

It is time to bring her story to young minds and challenge them to follow in her footsteps in the continuing fight for inclusion, equality, and human rights. My hope, as an educator and her niece, is to be one of the ones to do that.

Rev. Dr. Terri Ofori

Senior Advisor

Provides strategic guidance to the Founder on DEIB, education initiatives, community engagement and church relations. Writes grants for DEIB programs and initiatives. Develops and implements strategic initiatives for mission, vision and board recruitment. Co-Founder of the Pauli Murray Freedom School for Girls and Women’s Leadership Development. Provides mentorship and support for Freedom Schools graduate interns guiding them in their responsibilities and fostering a positive and inclusive volunteer environment.

Ria Aiken


Senior Advisor

Advises on a full range of strategic, operational, technical, financial and policy issues. Acts as a liaison with major corporations, organizations, government entities, and outside vendors.

The Murray Family’s Exhibition of the Scholar, Activist, Attorney, Author, Educator, and Priest.

PURPOSE

As history continues to unfold, the nation will come to know one of its most remarkable pioneers, Rev. Dr. Anna Pauline “Pauli” Murray. Pauli was an insurmountable historical figure whose works were virtually buried for decades, due to national interests and social and political differences. It was inevitable that her ideologies about racism and sexism would resurface, as these identical issues still plague American Society - more than forty years later. It has since been acknowledged that she performed a tremendous amount of ideological research and wrote profoundly, against the unfair, illegal, and unjust civil rights practices of her day. Her works, specifically as an activist, attorney, and priest are now being uncovered, rendering her life and legacy to be stronger and more relevant today.

After years of upholding her legacy and propelling her mission forward, members of the family of Pauli Murray are partnering with entities, organizations, and institutions to acknowledge and preserve her life works and legacy. Pauli was an incomparable activist that spent her existence fighting for women’s rights, human rights, and sexual equality. Subsequently, her family seeks to honor her through public speaking engagements, institutional installations, and exhibits to further the passion and perseverance of Pauli Murray and to combat the prejudices and inequalities that are ever-present.

Have Rosita at your next panel, podcast, or educational event.

  • $300.00 + Travel Expenses

  • 4-5 Presentations

    Writer's Lunch Bunch for up to 20 Students

    $750.00 + lodging and travel expenses*

  • Starts at $500 + Travel Expenses

 About Pauli

Possessing the audacity, well beyond her sex and race, Pauli employed radical, unconventional, and unpopular means to educate herself and to fight for civil and human rights in the United States. Pauli was seen as an agitator by the powers of her era, but today the evidence of her passion, drive and perseverance deems her as one of the most influential forces behind early gender, civil rights opposition in the 60’s, 70’s , and seemingly beyond. She was a renowned Scholar, Activist, Author, Professor, and Priest of the Episcopalian Church.

Having been born and grown up on the edge of obscurity, being bi-racial, adopted, and female, Pauli possessed multiple factors that challenged her very existence during that day. Only through her determination and belief in her innate design and destiny was she able to combat layers of discrimination and become one of the boldest pioneers for justice in this imperfect nation. The Murray family introduces the “Pauli” the world should know…

Education

  • General Theological Seminary

  • Yale University Law JSD

  • University of California at Berkeley’s Law - MA Degree

  • Howard University Law School - JD

  • Hunter College - BS Degree

Passion

  • Organized student Sit-ins to protest segregation

  • Became a labor lawyer, a University Professor

  • Champion for civil rights and human rights

  • Was a historian, attorney, educator, activist, teacher

  • Prolific Writer, author, poet

  • The First African-American to receive a JSD degree from Yale Law School

  • Co-Founder of the National Organization for women (NOW)

  • The First African American woman to be ordained as an Episcopal Priest

  • The First Professor to teach African American Studies at Brandeis University

 Works

Murray’s writings garnered her relationships with Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Eleanor Roosevelt, NAACP, Langston Hughes, Davison M. Douglas, and Caroline Ware. She changed civil rights laws with her research and her interpretation laid the groundwork for civil and women’s rights.

  • “Song in a Weary Throat” 1987 (Published after her death)

  • “States Laws on Race and Color” 1951

  • “Proud Shoes” 1956

  • Co-Authored “The Constitution and Government of Ghana” 1961 - Dr. Murray had been a senior lecturer at Ghana University Law School in Accra

  • “Dark Testament and Other Poems” 1970

  • “Jane Crow and the Law: Sex Discrimination and Title VII”

Honors

  • Posthumously recognized with an Honorary Doctor of Laws - Howard University 2017

  • Posthumously won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award (first person to do so) for “Song in a Weary Throat”

  • “Song in a Weary Throat” receives Christopher Award and the Lillian Smith Book Award

  • Honorary Doctorate of Divinity - Yale University 1979

  • Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters - Cedar Crest College 1979

  • Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters - Bryant College 1980

  • Honorary Member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated

  • Proposed - Pauli Murray Postage Stamp

  • Proposed - Statue in Bishop Square in Baltimore to replace the Confederate Women of Maryland Monument

  • To Buy The Sun: The Challenge of Pauli Murray - A Play by Lynden Harris

  • Fitzgerald Home (where Murray grew up) designated as a National Historic Landmark

  • Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice established in the Fitzgerald Home

  • Pauli Murray College at Yale Dedicated in 2017

  • Pauli Murray Project, Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute

  • Harvard Universities Radcliff Institute for Advanced Study, the Schlesigner Library holds the Pauli Murray Collection, a vast resource comprised of audiotapes, correspondence, legal briefs, photographs, sermons, speeches, and more.

  • The Gerald B. Roemer Community Service Award by the Department of Justice Pride ( In recognition of contributions to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community) 2020

  • National Women's History Alliance entitled "Nevertheless She Persisted." One of several women who received this prestigious award for working tirelessly in so many areas against the odds - 2018