Review: Documentary 'My Name Is Pauli Murray' gives proper credit to an unsung hero of the civil rights movement

Unless you’re well versed in American legal theory or LGBTQ history, you may not know who Pauli Murray — a situation the thoughtful and informative documentary “My Name Is Pauli Murray” works to rectify.

Murray was an activist for civil rights and women’s rights, and an icon for LGBTQ people. At different points in her life, she was a pioneering student, a poet, a lawyer, an unsung legal scholar, an author, a professor and Episcopal minister.

Directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West, who profiled the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in “RBG,” chronicle Murray’s birth in Baltimore and upbringing in Durham, N.C., where she felt the sting of racism firsthand. The directors often point out moments in Murray’s life where she fought battles long before others; for example, she and a friend were arrested for sitting in the whites-only section of a segregated bus, in 1940 — 15 years before Rosa Parks famously did the same. (Murray and the friend were outmaneuvered by the prosecution, who dropped the segregation charge that she wanted to fight as unconstitutional, and merely charged her with disturbing the peace.)

In law school, at Howard University in 1942, Murray wrote a paper arguing that segregation violated both the 13th and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Though the paper was disputed by some of her professors, it was filed away — and became a core argument when the NAACP’s legal counsel, Thurgood Marshall, argued before the Supreme Court in the landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education. But, for years, Murray was not told of her contribution for decades.

Another of Murray’s arguments, this one about discrimination by sex, was taken up by Ginsburg when she worked on the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. (Ginsburg cited Murray by name in her amicus brief in the precedent-setting 1971 case Reed v. Reed.) Cohen and West present an outtake from “RBG,” in which Ginsburg praises the strength of Murray’s legal mind, and the clip takes on the air of a holy relic.

The film also takes pains to document Murray’s sexual identity, something she had to hide from the world. Murray preferred trousers over skirts, and begged doctors to prescribe hormones because she was convinced she was a man born in a woman’s body. She also had a long, loving relationship with Irene Barlow — once an office manager at a law firm where Murray worked — that lasted nearly a quarter-century. By today’s measure, according to her biographers, Murray likely would have identified as transgender.

Cohen and West rely on a wealth of Murray’s writings, including legal briefs, poetry and personal letters that depict her struggles with depression. They also interview a wealth of scholars who detail Murray’s contributions to legal thinking, and provide the context for how those lessons apply today. Those voices turn “My Name Is Pauli Murray” into a dynamic history lesson, and an introduction to a hero for civil rights for whom recognition is long overdue.

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‘My Name Is Pauli Murray’

★★★

Opens Friday, September 17, at Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy) and Megaplex at The District (South Jordan); also streaming on Prime video starting October 1. Rated PG-13 for disturbing/violent images and thematic elements. Running time: 91 minutes.