In late 1938, Pauli Murray applied for admission to the Graduate School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Murray had been closely following legal challenges to segregation in education and was motivated by earlier attempts by Black students to enroll at UNC. Prior to Murray’s application, Thomas Hocutt’s unsuccessful effort to attend the School of Pharmacy in 1933 was well publicized and Murray had spoken to Hocutt about his interactions with the University. The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada, announced in December 1938, appeared to provide an opening for Murray and other Black students to attend graduate programs at state universities when similar programs were not available at state-supported schools open to Black students.
Murray hoped to challenge the legality of the University’s decision in the courts, but was disappointed when she was unable to receive the backing of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), then at the forefront of legal challenges to segregation. She writes, “When I went to see Thurgood Marshall, however, I suffered my worst disappointment. The NAACP had studied my case and had decided not to undertake a court action on my behalf. . . They now wanted an ‘airtight’ case which would square on all counts with the Gaines decision, and the circumstances of my case presented too great a risk." (Song in a Weary Throat, 162-163). Because Murray was living in New York, Marshall felt that her case would not be as strong as it might coming from someone currently living in North Carolina.
Black students in North Carolina continued to challenge the University’s admissions policies, finally succeeding in 1951. That summer, seven Black students enrolled in graduate programs at UNC: Harvey Beech, James Lassiter, J. Kenneth Lee, Floyd McKissick, and James Walker, Jr. in the law school; Dudley Diggs in the medical school; and Gwendolyn Harrison in the graduate school.
“New York Woman Seeks to Enter Grad School.” Daily Tar Heel, 5 January 1939
[Article contains racial slurs]
The possibility of the University admitting a Black student appears to have been widely discussed on campus in debates, student polls, and editorials. The Daily Tar Heel reported on Murray’s application in early 1939, although her name was not mentioned. The article included several racist responses and threats from unnamed students and suggested that campus opinion had taken on an “ante-bellum air.” In Song in a Weary Throat, Murray remembered seeing these early news reports:
"The days immediately following the first press stories were anxious ones for me. I had touched the raw nerve of white supremacy in the South, and the outcry reverberated for weeks. A rash of stinging comments and editorials appeared in the daily press, which were not surprising but which cut deeply when one saw them in print." (p. 152)
“Graduate Voters Approve Admission of Negroes.” Daily Tar Heel, 11 January 1939
The Daily Tar Heel reported on an informal poll among UNC graduate students about the admission of Black graduate students to the University. Of the 120 responses received, 82 students voted in favor of admitting Black graduate students with 38 opposed. In the same issue, the paper reported on a debate in the Dialectic Society, one of the two student debating societies, about integrating the University. By a vote of 15-11, the Society voted against admitting Black students to UNC.
The Carolina Magazine Vol. 68, no. 5. February 1939
The February 1939 issue of The Carolina Magazine, a student-run literary magazine, devoted several articles to the question of admitting Black students to UNC. The opening editorial discussed “the inevitable application of a Negro to enter the University of North Carolina.” The issue includes articles from James T. Taylor, an administrator at the North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central University); UNC sociologist Howard Odum; UNC Press editor W.T. Couch; and Bennett College faculty member R. Nathaniel Dett. The issue also included a poem by Pauli Murray, “The Song of the Highway.”
Letter from Pauli Murray to Frank Porter Graham, 17 January 1939
Following the rejection of her application to UNC, Murray appealed directly to UNC President Frank Porter Graham. Murray argued that she was not simply seeking any graduate education – she was specifically interested in studying at UNC with faculty members such as Howard Odum and Guy Benton Johnson, whose work Murray had read. She argued that the colleges available to Black students in North Carolina were not comparable to UNC and other state-supported schools for white students.
Murray explains that she is fully aware of “the difficulties and problems which will confront any inter-racial undertaking South of the Mason-and-Dixon line,” but remains hopeful problems can be addressed through “frank, open discussion by representatives of both groups.”
She closes with a list of questions she suggests posing to the student body as a follow up to previous polls about admitting Black students to UNC. It is clear from the entire letter that Murray has been closely following media coverage of the University and is eager to engage with the students on these questions.
Letter from Frank Porter Graham to Pauli Murray, 3 February 1939
Graham’s response to Murray explains that while he was aware of the “inequities” in segregated higher education, the admission of Black students to the University was prohibited by state law and essentially out of his hands. Graham argues for patience and cooperation, especially among white and Black educators. On three occasions Graham cautions against openly advocating for integrating UNC for fear of causing a “throwback” to a “darker time.”
He closes with a careful effort to explain the difficulty of his situation: “As you may know, I am under very bitter attack in some parts of North Carolina and the lower South for what little I have tried to do on behalf of Negro people, organized and unorganized workers and other underprivileged groups. I realize I am also subject to attack because I understand the limitations under which we must work in order to make the next possible advance.”
Letter from Pauli Murray to Frank Porter Graham, 6 February 1939
Murray’s short reply to Graham is direct and suggests the possibility of legal action: “This much is certain, however. That the Constitution of North Carolina is inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States and should be changed to meet the ideals set forth by the first citizens of our country.” Rejecting Graham’s call for patience, she writes, “We of the younger generation cannot compromise with our ideals of human equality. We have seen the consequences of such compromises in the bloody pages of human history, and we must hold fast, using all of our passion and reason.”