In February 1978, 40 years after the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) refused to admit Pauli Murray because of her race, the University invited Murray to campus to accept an honorary degree. Chancellor N. Ferebee Taylor wrote to tell Murray that the faculty and Trustees had voted to confer upon her an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at the May Commencement.
Murray was initially thrilled. Reflecting on the moment in Song in a Weary Throat: Memoir of an American Pilgrimage, she wrote: “To me, it was more than an academic honor; it was a symbol of acceptance stretching back to my Grandmother Cornelia and her relationship to the Chapel Hill Smiths, whose position as benefactors of the university from which I had been excluded had intensified my feeling of being disinherited. My enthusiastic letter of acceptance conveyed to Chancellor Taylor the special significance of this honor to me.” (p. 128)
Murray’s enthusiasm was soon tempered when she learned about UNC’s dispute with the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) regarding the University’s failure to dismantle segregation in the UNC System. Murray was also upset to learn that the Commencement address in 1978 was to be given by North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt. Murray was one of many who had criticized Hunt for his failure to pardon the Wilmington 10.
Murray ultimately decided that she could not accept an honorary degree. “To accept an honor from the university at this point would be interpreted as acquiescence in its unwillingness to comply with the federal government's demand for more thoroughgoing desegregation. In the circumstances, I had no alternative but to withdraw my earlier acceptance and send Chancellor Taylor a letter sorrowfully declining the honorary degree.” (Song in a Weary Throat, p. 129)
Despite her refusal, Murray continued to correspond with University leaders, offering to mediate in the dispute between UNC and HEW. The University did not accept Murray’s offer.
Letter from UNC Chancellor N. Ferebee Taylor offering an honorary Doctor of Laws degree to Pauli Murray and inviting her to the May 1978 commencement, 10 February 1978
In early 1978, UNC Chancellor N. Ferebee Taylor wrote to inform Murray confidentially that the Faculty and Trustees “desires to confer upon you the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws at our Commencement on 14 May 1978. It is expected, of course, that recipients will be present at the Commencement exercises.” The text of the letter to Murray is identical to the letters received by other honorary degree candidates.
Pauli Murray's proposal to mediate the dispute between the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare and the State of North Carolina: University of North Carolina System
In her proposal for a board of mediation to settle the dispute between HEW and UNC, Murray referred to her early experiences with the University. “My name may be recalled as the center of the controversy of 1938-39 over the admission of Negroes to the University of North Carolina.” Murray also referenced her family ties to UNC and commitment to education: “I have a personal and ancestral interest in seeing to it that the integrity and honor of the University of North Carolina system be preserved while simultaneously reversing a systematic deprivation of Negro citizens, Native Americans, and women over at least two centuries. My combined Black and White ancestry has been deeply involved in public education at every level in North Carolina for seven generations, and I find myself emotionally involved on both sides of the current controversy.”
Letter from Pauli Murray to June and Lee Kessler, 21 April 1978
After refusing the honorary degree from UNC, Murray wrote to her friends June and Lee Kessler describing her feelings about the decision and her thoughts about UNC Chancellor N. Ferebee Taylor. Murray writes that Taylor was a UNC undergraduate at the time Murray applied to the University and references the honorary degree as an opportunity for Taylor to “do something about that ‘error’ of 1938.” Murray describes a phone call with Taylor, writing about it in the third person: “What PM wanted most from N.C. she had to risk for a principle that transcended her own personal vanity and desire for recognition. What Ferebee Taylor had labored for for 40 years and thought would be consummated symbolically on May 14, had to be postponed, and for all his persuasive powers – and he was persuasive; the tape shows there were tears in PM’s voice as she said over and over again, ‘There’s just no way; I have to live with myself; I have to do what is right so I can sleep at night; we’re in this thing together – I’m on both sides of this fight, split right down the middle. . .’”
Newspaper article entitled "Someday a Poet Will Rise to Sing You..." detailing Pauli Murray's refusal of an honorary degree from UNC
[Article contains racial slurs]
A Winston-Salem reporter interviewed Murray following her refusal of an honorary degree from UNC. Murray explained how the University’s dispute with HEW affected her decision: “An honorary degree means you are sort of in favor of what a college has done. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I couldn’t accept it.” Murray also addressed the presence of Governor Jim Hunt on the same stage: “There’s no way I can keep my integrity and be seen on the platform with Gov. Hunt. Can you imagine me sitting there in the face of his refusal to pardon the Wilmington 10? Sitting there, passive, unable to make a response?”