Chapel Hill: Chapel of the Cross rock wall with the church seen in the distance, circa 1890s-1920s
After the passing of her partner, Irene “Renee” Barlow in 1973, Pauli Murray started her journey towards ordination. In Song in a Weary Throat: Memoir of an American Pilgrimage, Murray writes, “For the second time in my life, I had been called upon to be with a devout Christian whom I loved in the crisis of death and to minister in ways I associated with only the ordained clergy. As I reflected on these experiences, the thought of ordination became unavoidable. Yet, the notion of a ‘call’ was so astounding when it burst into my consciousness that I went about in a daze, unable to eat or sleep as I struggled against it. In spite of my vigorous advocacy of women’s ordination in the Episcopal Church as a matter of principle, my age and, more important, my sense of unworthiness had insulated me against entertaining such a possibility for myself. It had taken a cataclysm, watching my friend in an abyss of suffering to force my submission and obedience to divine will.” (p. 426)
Pauli Murray as an ordained Episcopal priest at her home in Alexandria, Virginia, 1977
Murray’s time at the General Theological Seminary coincided with the fight for gender equality in the Episcopalian priesthood. At the 1973 General Assembly of the Episcopalian Church, women’s ordination was struck down. Afterwards, Murray attended a conference in Philadelphia with women seminarians to discuss ways forward and writes, “The rawness of these wounds was so distressing that in the closing session I felt compelled to say that the church was losing its authority as a Christian body and that it was no longer speaking with an authentic voice if women were treated as outcasts when they sought to answer God’s call to the priesthood.” (p. 429) After years of organizing, the 1976 General Assembly of the Episcopalian Church approved women’s ordination. That same year, Murray earned her Master of Divinity at the General Theological Seminary. Murray was ordained as an Episcopal priest on 8 January 1977, at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.
Reverend Peter James Lee invited Murray to celebrate her first Eucharist at to the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill, citing her familial connection to the church. Murray’s grandmother, Cornelia Smith Fitzgerald, was baptized at the Chapel of the Cross on 20 December 1854. The parish register listed her as one of “five serving children of the Smith family.” One hundred and twenty-two years later, on 13 February 1977, Murray returned to the Chapel of the Cross to celebrate her first Eucharist as an Episcopal priest. During her sermon she spoke:
"Harriet is my great-grandmother and I am mindful of the biblical prophecy that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. Here, the Old Testament story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, the bondswoman, Isaac the legitimate heir, and Ishmael the outcasts comes alive in our own time. Read Harriet Smith for Hagar and you have the connection.
The promise of the Angel of the Lord to Hagar in the wilderness when she laid her son Ishmael down to die for lack of water was to make Ishmael and his descendants a great nation. I have come to fulfill that promise but in my eyes the great nation is the American nation neither Black nor white but all colors living freely to be able to express themselves as children of God.
It was my destiny to be the descendants of both slave owners as well as slaves, to be of mixed ancestry, to be biologically and psychologically integrated in a world where the separation of the races was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States as the fundamental law of the land in the South.
My entire life's quest has been for spiritual integration and this quest led me ultimately to Christ in whom there is no East or West, no North, no South, no Black, no white, no red, or yellow, no Jew nor Gentile, no Islam or Buddha, no Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, Roman Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox. There is no Black Christ or white Christ nor red Christ although it may be that these images may have certain transitory cultural value. There is only Christ, the spirit of love and Reconciliation, the Healer of deep psychological wounds drawing all of us closer to that goal of perfection of which we are capable, which links us to God our creator and to Eternity."
Murray concludes Song in a Weary Throat: Memoir of an American Pilgrimage with the following reflection:
“I read the gospel from an ornate lectern engraved with the name of that slave-owning woman [Mary Ruffin Smith] who had left part of her wealth to the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. A thoroughly interracial congregation crowded the chapel, and many more stood outside until they could enter to kneel at the altar rail and receive Communion. There was a great irony in the fact that the first woman priest to preside at the altar of the church to which Mary Ruffin Smith had given her deepest devotion should be the granddaughter of the little girl she had sent to the balcony reserved for slaves. But more than irony marked that moment. Whatever future ministry I might have as priest, it was given to me that day to be a symbol of healing.” (p. 435)
"Rejected from UNC 38 Years Ago, Pauli Murray Returns to Offer Hope," Daily Tar Heel, 18 February 1977
The Daily Tar Heel detailed the reunion writing, “But returning to a place is a venture into the past, and it is the past Pauli Murray resurrected on Sunday. Her past in Chapel Hill embraces the anguish of slavery, the pride and dogged determination of her educated ancestors and her own struggle to break the color barrier at UNC.” Murray was also featured in "On the Road" with Charles Kuralt where she was asked if her grandmother, Cornelia, was looking down on her as she gave her sermon. Murray replied: "My grandmother was much closer than that. She was right behind me."
"One Step Forward...Two Steps Back," Yackety Yack, 1977
Murray’s return to Chapel Hill coincided with the third attempt to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the North Carolina General Assembly. This amendment to the United States Constitution, still unratified by NC, states that women should have equal rights in the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction. In her sermon, Murray stated, “we hope and pray that the Equal Rights Amendment will be ratified. Legislators from North Carolina, please take note.” Less than a month later, the North Carolina state senate voted against the ERA 26-24. The 1977 edition of the Yackety Yack, UNC’s yearbook, crystallized Murray’s return alongside the North Carolina General Assembly’s defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment noting, “One Step Forward...Two Steps Backward.”