College students, local residents and other volunteers cleaned up her home as a part of a eight-year broader community revitalization effort.
But, Murray, for many— like Barbara Lau—director of Duke University's Human Rights Center Pauli Murray Project, has become a shining local historical character.
After being denied admission into UNC-Chapel Hill graduate school because of her African-American descendence and Harvard University for her sex, Murray went on to become a civil rights lawyer, poet, storyteller, the first African-American woman ordained in the Episcopal Church and author of Proud Shoes: The story of an American Family.
"We have been working together since 2001 to tell the stories of these communities, and this is really one of the biggest stories we want to tell," Lau told the Durham News and Observer. "We want more people to know about her. We want this place to become a place where people can learn about her work, her activism for fighting for human rights for everyone."
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