Murray made his initial foray into poetry with
Conjugations and Reiterations (2001), a slim vol-
ume of poems, sometimes written in a syncopated
Kansas City 4/4 time, that contains reflections on
jazz, the blues, and another enduring theme of
Murray’s, “the folklore of white supremacy” and
“the fakelore of black pathology.” He also cowrote
Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count
Basie (As Told to Albert Murray) (1985) and con-
tributed to Ken Burns’s acclaimed documentary,
Jazz (2000).
Murray has received numerous awards and
honors, including the Ivan Sandorf Award for life-
time achievement from the National Book Critics
Circle (1997). He is a member of the American
Academy of Arts and Letters and holds honorary
doctorates from Colgate University and Hamilton
College. He currently serves on the board of direc-
tors of Jazz at Lincoln Center and is at work on a
fourth novel, tentatively titled The Magic Keys.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jones, Carolyn M. “Race and Intimacy: Albert Mur-
ray’s South to a Very Old Place.” In South to a New
Place: Region, Literature, Culture, 58–75. Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002.
Kerrer, Wolfgang. “Nostalgia, Amnesia, and Grand-
mothers: The Uses of Memory in Albert Mur-
ray, Sabine Ulibarri, Paula Gunn Allen, and Alice
Walker.” In Memory, Narrative, and Identity: New
Essays in Ethnic American Literatures, 128–144.
Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1994.
Maguire, Roberta S., ed. Conversations with Albert
Mur ray. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi,
1997.
———. “Walker Percy and Albert Murray: The Story
of Two ‘Part Anglo-Saxon Alabamians.” Southern
Quarterly: A Journal of Arts in the South 41, no. 1
(2002): 10–28.
Pinsker, Sanford. “Albert Murray: The Black Intel-
lectuals’ Maverick Patriarch.” Virginia Quarterly
Review: A National Journal of Literature and Dis-
cussion 72, no. 4 (1996): 678–684.
Rowell, Charles H. “ ‘An All-Purpose, All-American
Literary Intellectual’: An Interview with Albert
M u r r a y.” Callaloo 20, no. 2 (1997): 399–414.
Wideman, John. “Stomping the Blues: Ritual in Black
Music and Speech.” American Poetry Review 7, no.
4 (1978): 42–45.
Rebecka R. RutledgeMurray, Pauli (Anna Pauline Murray)
(1910–1985)
An activist, feminist, attorney, teacher, priest,
and poet, Pauli Murray was born in Baltimore
to William Henry, a public school teacher, and
Agnes Murray, a nurse. Pauli is the maternal
granddaughter of grandparents whose past was
rooted in slavery. Her grandfather worked with
the Freedmen’s Bureau and was the founder of
the first school system for free blacks of Virginia
and North Carolina. After attending the public
schools in Durham, North Carolina, where she
grew up, Murray finished her secondary educa-
tion at Richmond Hill School in New York, where
she lived with relatives. She received a B.A. degree
in English from Hunter College, which she at-
tended when Harlem was still in vogue. Murray
received an LL.B. degree (cum laude) from How-
ard University School of Law and an LL.M. degree
from the University of California at Berkeley’s
School of Jurisprudence. She later earned a J.D.S.
at Yale University Law School. Murray accom-
plished these goals and objectives during a time
when racial and gender lines blocked the path of
even biracial African-Americans who, should they
claim to do so, could point to their “blue blood”
ancestry, as Murray could.
After passing the state bar examinations of both
California and New York, Murray became a deputy
attorney general for the state of California, served
as a staff member of the Commission on Law and
Social Action of the American Jewish Congress,
and taught at Ghana School of Law and Brandeis
University before being ordained an Episcopal
priest. To accomplish these goals, Murray had to
face tremendous adversity and, in the end, not
merely knock on but also knock down many doors.
Murray served on John F. Kennedy’s Commission
on the Status of Women, 1962–1963, and became378 Murray, Pauli