My Name is Pauli Murray. Someone who definitely should be better known. Black civil rights attorney, writer, poet, teacher. Assigned female and referred to as a woman but was actually non-binary in an era when there was no such term. (I will use "she" as that was used during movie.) Murray grew up in an era when learned experts explained it was pointless to educate Black people because their brains were not constituted for learning, just manual tasks and obedience. And women's brains could not handle too much education.
She became a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt despite vastly different backgrounds, and was a major influence on Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, crusading in courts for racial and gender justice. She was a board member of American Civil Liberties Union and founder of National Organization for Women. After her longtime partner died, when she was over 60, she entered seminary and became one of the first women, and first Black woman, ordained an Episcopal priest.
With states banning teaching about Black people's struggles and civil rights, she could become even more invisible.
