Murray, (Anna Pauli Pauline Murray Biography

African-American author and lawyer, born in Baltimore; she worked as a schoolteacher before studying law at Howard University and the University of California, Berkeley. Active in the causes of racial equality and women's rights, in 1946 she became the first black woman to hold the office of Deputy Attorney of California and was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1966. She was also the first black American woman to be ordained as an Episcopalian priest. As a writer she is best known for her autobiographies Proud Shoes (1956; revised edition 1978) and Song in a Weary Throat (1987), which form a moving and spirited record of social and cultural developments among America's black population in the twentieth century. Dark Testament (1970) is a collection of poems reflecting on her personal and professional experiences. Murray also published numerous works of jurisprudence, which include Human Rights U.S.A., 1948–1966 (1967), and, with Leslie Rubin, drafted The Constitution and Government of Ghana (1961).