Pauli Murray: Human Rights Visionary and Trailblazer

Abstract

While other scholars have discussed Dr. Pauli Murray's remarkable contributions to race and sex equality law,1 few, if any, have placed her contributions within the context of the broader tradition of human rights law. And yet, she identified herself specifically through this lens, using the terminology and law of human rights, in part shaped by her friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a delegate to the UN Drafting Committee for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).2 This essay addresses a lacuna in legal scholarship by exploring the ways in which Murray's work fits into the Black intellectual tradition concerning the human rights idea. It also seeks to provide a greater understanding concerning contributions to human rights (and more broadly, international law) made by Howard University School of Law, where she attended law school and one of us is on the faculty. Among other linkages, Clarence Clyde Ferguson, a dean of Howard Law School and former ambassador, was the first Black president of the American Society of International Law.