A Source for Durham’s African-American Heritage

Durham has a long and proud African-American history, from the African Americans living and working here today to the leaders of Hayti and Black Wall Street, as well as many, many more. The Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau (DCVB) pays homage to that legacy with its African-American Heritage Guide. An updated version of the guide was recently release, along with an online portal with additional content.

The guide itself provides locals and visitors alike with maps and descriptions of historic sites, relevant exhibits, and more so interested parties can learn more about the contributions Durham’s African Americans made to the city, state, and country. The guide includes Pauli Murray’s childhood home, the Hayti Heritage Center, the site of important sit-ins, and more.

The online portal includes additional content, including more in-depth articles about Carolina Theatre’s civil rights exhibit and the role Historic Stagville has played in helping some African-American families shed light on their past. Additional content will be added throughout the year to reflect upcoming events.

Visit durhamblackhistory.com to view the portal. You can also browse the African-American Heritage Guide online.

Downtown Walking Tour This Saturday focused on Activism in Durham

Something as simple as taking a walk can stir the imagination to reflect on a time when social justice activism had yet to make the great strides that impact society today.


The Duke Human Rights Center's Pauli Murray Project at the Franklin Humanities Institute will present a walking tour in Downtown Durham Saturday, June 1 from 10 a.m. until Noon. The tour will begin and end at Parrish Street Forum at 108 W. Parrish St. Refreshments will be available. 

The walking tour is free and open to everyone, and will connect social justice activism across issues and time while presenting Durham's history and discussing the people who lived it. Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, Anti-War Actions, Anti-Klan Rallies and the fight for LGBTQ rights are all a part of Durham’s history. Join us as we visit the sites of these protests, share our knowledge and experience and learn more about this history from people who lived it.

This event is sponsored by the Pauli Murray Project at the Duke Human Rights Center/Franklin Humanities Institute with outreach partners Preservation Durham, Museum of Durham History, Durham Committee on the  Affairs of Black People, Southwest Central Quality of Life Project, Bayard Rustin Centennial Project, Durham County Library and Parrish Street Advocacy Group.  For more information, visit their website.




Discover more about Durham's rich history online.

Durham's Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray Elevated To Episcopal Sainthood

The Episcopal Church voted during its General Convention this month to include Durham reared Pauli Murray in Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints. Murray is honored as a saint for her advocacy of the universal cause of freedom and as the first African American female priest ordained by the Episcopal Church.

Pauli Murray

St. Titus’ Episcopal and the Pauli Murray Project are hosting the annual celebration of the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray on Wednesday, July 18 @6:30 p.m. at 400 Moline Street, Durham to mark the occasion. Bishop Michael Curry will serve as the celebrant and Rev. Roxane Gwyn will offer the sermon. A choir made up of representatives of Durham’s Episcopal congregations will sing. Everyone is invited to the service and the reception that will follow on the church grounds. “Pauli Murray had an agenda for the human good that was constant and unswerving.” says Bishop Michael Curry, “As a descendent of slaves and slaveholders, people who were members of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, she is a symbol for the importance of bringing different worlds together, even in midst of great pain.”

The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray (1910 – 1985) was a nationally and internationally known advocate for human rights and social justice who grew up with her grandparents Robert and Cornelia Fitzgerald on Carroll Street in Durham. She lived at the crossroads of all of the important social movements of 20th Century America.  In 1977 at age 66, she was the first African American woman to be ordained an Episcopal priest, offering communion for the first time at Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill where her grandmother had been baptized as a slave. Prior to answering this calling, Pauli Murray worked to address injustice and promote reconciliation between races, sexes, and economic classes through her work as an attorney, writer, feminist, poet, and educator. 

Descended from slaves and slave owners, she was a woman ahead of her time. In the 1930s and 40s, she fought against racial segregation in education and public transit. In the 1950s and 1960s, she challenged the Civil Rights Movement to recognize the leadership of women and the double discrimination that minority women face. As a lawyer, policy analyst and legal scholar she defied convention by stubbornly carving out her place in a male-dominated profession. She advised First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on civil rights and co-founded the National Organization for Women. As a same-gender-loving woman she struggled to live her life fully in a world not ready for her inclusive vision of freedom.  A much-accomplished woman, she earned six post-secondary degrees and published four books and numerous articles.

 “Durham can embrace Pauli Murray as an inspiration for our community’s commitment to the struggle for equality, dignity and justice,” says Barbara Lau, director of the Pauli Murray Project. “With this recognition as an Episcopal Saint, even more people will learn about her legacy of activism and the relevance of her ideas to today’s issues.”

The Pauli Murray Project, founded in 2009, is dedicated to lifting up her life and legacy. We promote open dialogue about contemporary issues and their historical roots and we document hidden stories of activism. We celebrate Pauli Murray and continue her work for social change. We are also renovating her childhood home in Durham as a center for dialogue, education, and the arts as well as mobilization for equality and justice.

Pauli Murray Honored With North Carolina Historic Highway Marker

Pauli Murray’s significant contributions to North Carolina history will be memorialized when her official state historic marker is unveiled Sunday, November 20, 2011. The ceremony will take place at 3 p.m. at the corner of Carroll and West Chapel Hill Streets. Pauli Murray was a nationally and internationally known advocate for human rights and social justice who was reared a few blocks from the marker site in the home of her grandparents Richard and Cornelia Fitzgerald.

Mayor Bill Bell will proclaim Pauli Murray Day in Durham and he will be joined by members of the Fitzgerald/Murray family, Southwest Central Durham neighbors and representatives of the Pauli Murray Project to dedicate the marker.  “Pauli Murray is well deserving of recognition by the state of North Carolina as a tireless champion for human rights,” says Barbara Lau, director of the Pauli Murray Project. “Placing this marker near her childhood home makes it a source of pride for her neighborhood and a beacon for young people who want to make a positive impact on the world.”  

Coinciding with Murray’s 101st birthday, a party will follow the dedication at the Center for Community, Family Life and Recreation at Lyon Park, 1313 Halley Street. Winners of the Youth Prophecy Poetry Contest will share their winning entries and refreshments will be served. The public is also invited to help create a Proud Shoes labyrinth with artist Bryant Holsenbeck out of recycled shoes at Murray’s childhood home, 906 Carroll Street beginning at 1 p.m.

Pauli Murray (1910-1985) grew up in Durham's West End neighborhood and graduated from Hillside High School in 1926. Murray was the first woman to graduate at the top of her class from Howard Law School. She advised First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on civil rights and co-founded the National Organization for Women. Before her death in 1985, Murray was the first African-American woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest and offered communion for the first time at the Chapel of the Cross Episcopal Church in Chapel Hill.

Pauli Murray Day in Durham is sponsored by the Pauli Murray Project at the Duke Human Rights Center, the Resource Center for Women in Ministry in the South, the Southwest Central Durham Quality of Life Project and the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership.