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Pauli Murray: The US firebrand’s unique opportunity to influence a continent

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Rosenberg Rosalind, Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. xvi + 494, ISBN: 9780190656454, US$29.95 (hardback).

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Braham Dabscheck
Braham Dabscheck*
Affiliation:
The University of Melbourne, Australia
*
Braham Dabscheck, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia. Email: bdabsche@bigpond.net.au.
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Abstract

This review article discusses Rosalind Rosenberg’s study of Pauli Murray’s pivotal role in enhancing the civil rights of African Americans and American women. Pauli Murray should be properly regarded as one of the leading legal thinkers of Twentieth-Century America. She played a role in the development of the jurisprudential thinking, which brought about an end to race discrimination as enshrined in the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine in the Supreme Court’s 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson and ending sex discrimination beginning with the Supreme Court’s 1971 decision in Reed v. Reed. The objective of this review article is to provide an account of her approach to attacking both legally based race and sex discrimination. Drawing on Rosenberg and referencing key legal texts, it begins with a brief account of Murray’s life and times. This is followed by an examination of her thinking on both race and sex discrimination. The review concludes by commending Rosenberg for her analysis of the intersections between the private and public personas of Pauli Murray in a century which witnessed fundamental changes in America.

Keywords

B10B22American ConstitutionBrown v. Board of EducationCivil Rights CasesEleanor RooseveltFourteenth AmendmentJustice John Marshall HarlanNational Association for the Advancement for Coloured PeoplePauli MurrayPlessy v. Fergusonrace discriminationReed v. Reedsex discriminationslaveryThirteenth AmendmentThurgood Marshall
Type
Review Article
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 30 , Issue 4: Brexit Wellbeing and Safety , December 2019 , pp. 566 - 579
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2019

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