Barbara Lau and Frachele Scott interviewed the Rev. Kim Jackson, Georgia’s first openly LGBTQ+ state senator.

Executive Director, Barbara Lau, recently interviewed Talleah Bridges-McMahon, the producer of the new documentary “My Name Is Pauli Murray.”

In this devasting, heartbreaking year, we mourn the loss of Civil Rights activist John Lewis and Pauli Murray’s friend Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, titans of the American human rights community. And we mourn the loss of peace, labor, and human rights activist Ray Eurquhart and West End neighborhood advocate Dorcas Bradley from our Durham family.

Pauli Murray and the West End neighborhood in which she grew up are cornerstones of this history despite being little recognized and now threatened with erasure. These impactful stories, like the ones shared at the Carroll Street Block Festival, represent the promise of Durham, the spirit of self-determination that the working-class African American residents of the West End so embodied.

When One Door Closes, Another Opens. Grandmother Cornelia often used these words to console Pauli Murray in the face of loss and disappointment. Those times were many in Pauli’s life. Now is also a time of loss, loss of life for Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade, and hundreds of others who have died in police custody, in prisons, in poverty, as a result of mob violence and/or institutional racism. We also mourn the loss of life for the more than 100,000 Americans, an inordinate number of whom were black and brown people, who have died because of COVID 19. Grief is all around us but it is fueling more than sadness.

Our actions today are creating the future. What are we finding intolerable today that we want to make sure to change? What is bringing us joy today that we want to continue? Pauli Murray understood these deep connections between past, present, and future.

We hope this finds you well. The global Covid-19 crisis invites deep reflection by all of us about the principles and people we hold dear. You, our Pauli Murray Center family, are people we hold dear and we appreciate all that you are doing to survive and support your families and communities.

Given our understanding of Pauli’s call to look to historically marginalized folks for leadership (in your sermon – to provide the cornerstone) and wisdom during challenging times (like now), what would the esteemed Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray be sharing with us now?