Pauli Murray was born on November 20th 1910  in Baltimore, Maryland. She wouldn't be there for long after losing her mom and dad and was raised by her grandma in Durham, North Carolina. 

After graduating high school Pauli Murray moved to New York City and attended Hunter College. After graduating in 1933 she became in the civil rights movement.

In 1938 Pauli Murray tried to get in a graduate school at the all white university of North Carolina. The press covered it from all around the country. She did not get into the school but she makes a life long friend Eleanor Roosevelt.

Pauli Murray continued to fight against segregation. In 1940 she was arrested and put in jail for refusing to get up and sit in the back of the bus in Richmond, Virginia. One year later Pauli Murray would begin law school at Howard University an HBCU in Washington, DC to become a civil rights attorney.