from the Durham (NC) News - News & Observer
"Episcopals commemorate civil rights champion
By Flo Johnston, Correspondent
The Durham Convocation of Episcopal Churches has announced an upcoming service to commemorate the life of the Rev. Pauli Murray (1910-1985), a lifelong champion for civil and human rights who grew up in Durham.
As a historian, attorney, poet, activist, teacher and Episcopal priest, she worked tirelessly to address injustice, educate and promote reconciliation between races.
The service on July 1 will be held at 7 p.m. at the church where she and her family worshipped, St. Titus Episcopal at 400 Moline St., located near the campus of N.C. Central University.
Bishop Michael Curry of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina will be the celebrant. The sermon will be drawn from the sermons and writings of Pauli Murray as compiled and presented by Courtney Reid-Eaton, who is exhibits director for the Duke Center for Documentary Studies and a parishioner of St. Joseph's Episcopal Church in Durham.
The significance of the service will be two-fold. First, to bear witness to an important figure in the local history of the Episcopal Church; and second, to assist in efforts to make the annual commemoration of her life an observance throughout the Episcopal Church.
This past spring, the Human Rights Center at Duke University launched a three-year initiative called the Pauli Murray Project in Durham. The goal is to use the writings of Murray as a lens through which to examine Durham's complex history around issues of race, to promote healthy dialogue and to seek reconciliation.
This should be of special interest to area Episcopalians, since Murray was the first woman of African-American heritage ordained as a priest. She returned to the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill in 1977 for her first celebration of the Eucharist, so that she could bear witness to the fact that her grandmother once sat in that church as an enslaved child....
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