I want to see (America) be what it claims to be
In the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
(America), be what you say!
(Polly Morey)"
Can I take close-up pictures of you without the glasses?
lie down.
sat down. lie down.
lie down.
Amazing
He wants to be in everything.
My name is Polly Morey,
My area of ​​focus was human rights.
My entire personal life has been a struggle to achieve a level of excellence
In a society dominated by ideas
that blacks are by nature inferior to whites,
And that women are by nature inferior to men.
Polly Morey was way ahead of her time.
She would say and do things that others did not say or do until a later era.
"The Colored Waiting Room"
Polly had the audacity to stand up to discrimination
In an era when that confrontation was causing grave dangers.
The accumulation of incident after incident meant that sooner or later,
Either I will be angry
Or I will find a way to protest.
Polly was a writer, lawyer, priest, and poet.
Hope is a leg crushed between clenched fingers.
Hope is a song in a tired throat.
"We will win"
Polly was very important in achieving the rights and freedoms we were blessed with.
Not only was Polly Morey an amazing lawyer or a fearless feminist,
Rather, it is heterosexual, not gender binary.
My students ask me most of the time, "Why don't we know about Polly Morey?"
How could a character like her be so important
Yet we never learned her name?
I'm Polly Morey
My great aunt Polly called me and said
She will die that night.
She said, "There are things here that you have to do for me."
She died a few hours later.
I found out that I was carrying out her will
Karen Rouse Ross is my brother Polly's granddaughter.
So I had to collect her things.
File cabinets were lined up in the rooms and bookcases were placed on top of them.
Boxes, folders and letters to the government.
I kept everything.
Schlesinger Library.
Harvard university
Polly's will was very clear.
She wanted her papers to be in the Schlesinger Library,
It is one of the places where the historical women's papers are included.
Aunt Polly didn't tell me much about her life.
I knew she was a priest and she was a lawyer,
But she never mentioned any of her accomplishments.
I started reading something I hadn't read before
Then I realized, "Oh my God."
'Bus Accident (Petersburg). March 1940.'
15 years before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a bus.
I didn't start it on purpose
An audio recording of Polly Morey.
On racial segregation laws in Virginia.
As was often the case in those early days,
There was an accident
Where one can do nothing but resist.
I was traveling with my girlfriend
From New York to Durham
To visit my aunt for Easter.
My girlfriend's name was Adeline McBain.
We used to call her "Mac".
For my mother, it was her first entrance
Margarita McBain, Adeline's daughter.
To a common situation in many places in the south.
When we cross the Mason Dixon line, we're expected to move to the back of the bus.
"for eggs"
The bus represented the evils of apartheid.
The limited space inside the bus allowed the public humiliation of blacks
to be performed in the presence of privileged white spectators ,
Who watched our shame in silence or indifference.
When they got to Virginia,
The blacks got up and moved to the back of the bus,
Then install more eggs.
The bus driver insisted that we move to the next seat.
His seat was broken, and we refused to sit on it.
The bus driver said he won't drive
Until you move to the back of the bus.
The police came and arrested us.
County Reservation, Petersburg, Virginia.
Mac and I were hungry and cold but we were too afraid to sleep
Because the mattress pads were full of insects.
When I protested, the rude night warden shouted,
"Shut up, or I'll put you in a dungeon.
Once the rats are done with you,
You'll wish I had remained silent."
They started realizing and...
I think the situation was frightening.
Polly contacted the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
Hoping that they will get a ruling announced
(Patricia Bell Scott)
Segregation of seats is unconstitutional.
Accident details:
'disturbance charge'
"bus diagram"
Mac and I filed a report,
Summary of the case, the facts...
After we were released on bail,
We were invited to meet NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall,
Judge William H. Hasty, and Dr. "Leon A Ransom".
It was my first meeting with a civil rights lawyer while they were working,
And I sat watching them fascinated for several hours.
They fought for the right of blacks to be easily assimilated into American life.
But the judge knew that the case had become important,
In the end, he outsmarts them.
Courtroom (Petersburg)
The judge ignored the central apartheid law in the case and said,
"You two were disturbing the peace."
No smoking, colored seats in the back.
So, they were unable to restructure the case as legal precedent.
They spent a short time in prison and then were released.
At that time, I felt nothing but bitter disappointment
for personal defeat,
But I started to feel like we were just a small part of a team effort
Aims to get rid of the apartheid law.
The idea was amazing.
Rutgers University
Today we have a great opportunity
To get to know Dr. Anna Pauline Morey.
Polly Morey is so amazing
I literally can't even cover all its predecessors and their awesomeness.
Imagine that you are a black person in the 20th century
You try to make the argument that your humanity should be respected.
You live in a world where people don't like you
Just because you are black.
I want you to understand what shaped Morey's life.
This is the first chapter, the first page
From the autobiography in manuscript.
In a study published in 1910, my AD year,
Dr. Howard W. O'Dam, a sociologist at the time at Columbia University,
He claimed that races have different "abilities and capabilities,"
The citation is over.
Those who wish to help a black person must:
“Don't expect too much from him.
His simple understanding of the meaning of virtue,
Wal-Martha.
The best education for a black child
It will undoubtedly lead to acceptance
For the fact that he's of a different race than whites really,"
The citation is over.
Dr. Howard Odom
"school bus"
I can remember that day and could almost see that old school building.
It was a weak wooden building, without swings.
There was nothing to play with when we went out.
And of course, the white children's school,
It stands on a green meadow and is surrounded by a fence.
This was the discrepancy between our treatment
and treatment of white children.
One feels these things.
I come from a proud people.
They were stubborn and went against popular opinion.
This is home. This is Polly Morey's house.
When she came to this house, she was 3 years old.
important role
It came because of a tragedy.
Her mother died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Eventually her father was placed in a mental hospital.
Although she was born in Baltimore, this was really her home.
When you come to Durham,
The house used to house my Aunt Pauline and Aunt Sally.
My grandfather the Fitzgeralds.
The Fitzgeralds were well known in Durham.
And their status is high in the black community.
The family history was mixed among the Cherokees
The Irish and African Americans.
Some of its family members looked very white
They were considered white.
Polly was in the middle.
There was an injustice based on the color of the skin
From the white community and the black community.
Therefore, they were an independent entity.
Polly was the joy of the house.
Aunt Pauline had no children, so she fell in love with them.
Aunt Pauline taught at the local public schools
And when I was 4 years old,
She decided to take me with her every day.
I was allowed to sit with the older children and watch as they listened to their lessons.
towards the end of the school year,
Aunt Pauline was surprised when she heard me say,
"I can read, Aunt Pauline."
I took the book from the child next to me and began to read aloud.
All the time I spent in her class,
I was learning what she was teaching others.
Since then, the classroom has become my second home.
She was allowed to ask any questions she wanted.
She was allowed to have an opinion.
But Polly didn't want to wear dresses.
Aunt Pauline made her go to church every Sunday.
So they made a deal.
She said, "You can wear pants all week,
But when you go to church, you should wear a dress."
My life was kind of protected.
It was a time when life became unbearable
When I was dealing with the world of eggs.
People used to refer to adult blacks as "aunt", "uncle" and "boy".
50 or 60 black people were executed without trial a year.
I don't remember that extrajudicial execution was prominently published in the newspapers,
But we used to hear about him with what Al-Alsun narrates.
Like, "A person was executed in a county last night."
The awareness of the Ku Klux Klan was always in the background.
That realization, for a child of my generation,
It grows with one as...
As if it were a part of his body and his being.
"To the tyrants
You are strong now
We are nothing but grapes
yearning for maturity.
crush us
They squeezed out of us all the brave life
Involved in those perfect skins.
But our strength is soft,
It is strengthened by centuries of yearning.
We will endure to steal your senses
In that lonely twilight of the winter of your sorrow.
(Polly Morey)"
"I can not bear the senses
In that lonely twilight of the winter of your sorrow.
How does Polly realize her place in history?
Polly is in the field to fix those problems
that arose out of the institution of slavery.
I think this is very powerful. that Polly alleges,
"This is my space and this is my time to do this work."
She uses a typewriter and writes to express herself completely.
It's always there, so maybe future generations like us can
understand it better.
I suppose the motivation for writing is generally the desire to communicate.
In other words, you want to share with others some of your ideas
.......
My story is much more difficult to write than to write about someone else.
Chapter 6, manuscript page 120.
After my school, I didn't want to go to any university that practiced apartheid.
I was determined not to do that.
So, Aunt Pauline took me to New York.
I was amazed by almost everything I saw.
Empire State
Skyscrapers, Coney Island, Statue of Liberty,
Broadway theater district
"choose first"
Automated restaurant where a person can put 5 cents in a slot and get plates of hot food.
And more than anything, I was amazed because one can sit wherever one wants
On subways, buses and trams.
At Hunter University, I was one of 4 black women in a group of 247 women.
I took all the seminars that dealt with literature
Creative writing and short stories.
Remember, I was a southern child
I use grammar badly
I constantly feel the gap between my education level
And among these smart girls at Hunter University.
So the question on my mind was always, "Am I good enough?"
I graduated from Hunter College in the class of 1933.
The Great Depression.
Long lines of men waiting,
They're waiting for a free bowl of soup, they're waiting for jobs.
It was the worst possible time to start one's career.
Every morning, I searched in vain for "help needed" ads.
"The last cent was borrowed,
There is nothing left to pawn
salt and water
They no longer subside the pangs of hunger.”
Despite those hardships,
Unemployment allowed me freedom of movement
To travel in otherwise socially unacceptable ways .
"vagrant"
I was about to join nearly 300,000 homeless and outcast boys
And a number of girls who rode the transport trains
Or they traveled from one town to another in search of work.
(Union Pacific)
I got dressed up to travel snooty, khaki pants and a leather jacket
And I carried a small backpack that held a minimum of camping gear.
Also, my haircut was boyish and my body was small,
and flat in obvious places,
At first glance, this made me look like a tiny teenage boy.
Polly finds it fun to appear masculine.
There are great pictures of her
In different kinds of situations that are specific to boys
She called herself many names. She called herself "House".
(Polly), (Pete)
She called herself "The Young Man".
"(The Young Man) - 1931"
when you write about this,
She said she did it to protect herself
Because she can't be a single black woman traveling by train illegally,
Without fear of harassment or sexual assault.
I pledge
The New Deal for the American people.
Camp Terra, North New York.
I became one of hundreds of unemployed women
The participants of the "Terra" camp,
One of the 28 women's camps established by the New Deal.
She immediately became friends with Big Holmes, who was an outing consultant
She had an intellectual curiosity similar to mine.
Peggy Holmes was the daughter of a conservative banker
The Great Depression made him an extremist.
Paige seemed to have no racial prejudice whatsoever.
She read some of my poems and said to me,
“How can you write with such compassion?
If I were black, I would be bitter."
That spring, Big and I went on a 5-week trip to Nebraska and back.
Someone new thinking like you
Lunch at Khao Beach at dusk...
These are the everyday little pleasures of life.
"Equal pay, equal work"
Beg and I became interested in industrial and labor problems.
And I tested my first sit-up.
One would witness in the labor movements something like religious fervor.
We participated in the sit-in of "General" car workers
In early 1937.
I suddenly found myself in an extreme situation.
"Sit-ins for fair wages"
And now I'm starting to understand this,
This whole concept of freedom and dignity
related to being black in America.
"Join our union, don't be a naysayer"
I don't think I'll try to score the next chapter until another session.
You can imagine this is hard for me emotionally.
But anyway, I hope I piqued the reader's interest.
Polly Morey had a sense of being a historical figure.
There are 135 boxes in the Schlesinger library
(Rosalind Rosenberg)
For "Polymore" papers.
Some of them are not included in any of Morey's published works.
I came across a folder entitled "Sexual Life".
Morey told the doctors she was ostensibly a woman,
But she is actually a man.
One of nature's experiments:
A girl who should have been a boy.
A letter from a doctor (Polly Murray)
Polly was hoping that her relationship with Peggy...
may become a normal relationship,
I meant Polly by that
Polly will be the man and Peggy will be the wife.
Peggy couldn't see Polly as a man.
In the end, their relationship ended.
“Don't leave me, my love.
accompany me
And we'll go singing. (Polly Morey)
When did Peggy Holmes disappear from Murray's life?
led to emotional breakdown
It ends with Polly being admitted to Bellevue Hospital.
Polly's letters were when she was under observation in psychiatric hospitals
ةةةةةة.
"Why is my biggest attraction to you?
Very feminine and heterosexual women?"
Polly was depressed, asking the doctors, "Why do I deal with these attractions?"
"That makes it impossible to have a satisfying relationship with anyone."
"Where do I go to get an answer?"
Those experiences have always been there.
Polly's historical records.
She allowed us to think about the humanity of someone who was black
(Raquel Willis)
And her gender identity was unknown at the time Polly was living.
Read Morey's medical records and letters
Memory (Polly Morey)
As a transgender, non- gender -identified, mixed-race person,
I thought, "That's a feeling I know all too well."
We are taught to believe that people like us do not exist.
So when I found out about Polly Morey,
I was so amazed and wanted to hold on to what I had learned.
(Doris Chandler)
I was also very angry,
Because I somehow felt that a part of my history had been taken from me.
I see myself in a person's disorder
He was trying to live his life as a complete being
With an integrated body, mind and spirit.
If Polly Morey was sitting here today
And I said, "Polly, what pronouns do you use?"
I don't know what Polly Morey was going to say.
Because I'm black and heterosexual too,
I refer to 'Polly' as 'them' or just 'Polly'
To express the breadth of her gender expertise.
Scholars who have written about "polly" still use feminine pronouns,
using the pronoun she.
Friends and family refer to " polly " with feminine pronouns.
But I think we'll see more people referring to Polly Morey.
Gender-neutral pronouns, as opposed to feminine pronouns.
Polly Morey (Proud Shoe)
Mori never wrote about her gender struggles
In her published books,
I rarely talked about it even with friends.
She found herself in a completely strange situation
For anyone I cared about. Except for her aunt Pauline.
Aunt Polly would call Polly, "my girl boy,"
She was always supportive of Polly.
Aunt Pauline allowed Aunt Polly to be exactly who she wanted to be.
We do n't usually receive this kind of unconditional love.
But when I tried to find that love in other places,
It was really difficult.
She was exhausting herself at work.
She had been drinking coffee all night.
She was impatient sometimes.
She's been saying for most of her life, "You'll see me. You'll hear me."
University of North Carolina
13 years before accepting the first black student
at that point,
The University of North Carolina offered courses in race relations.
So I thought, "Maybe they're ready now to accept a black student."
Enrollment form
They sent me a blank application.
There were two categories of race and religion.
I think I answered them, but I might have written, "What difference does that make?"
They replied with a letter
From the president of the University of North Carolina says,
“The constitution and laws forbid me
than accepting one of your race.”
The President of "America" ​​is on his way back to the nation's capital,
Stop at the University of North Carolina
To receive an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the university.
I am pleased and proud to be a graduate of the University of North Carolina,
Which represents
American liberal thought
Via American behavior.
Polly heard the speech,
(Roosevelt) defends the politics of liberalism.
She decided to write a letter to Franklin Roosevelt.
It was a typical letter of angry protest from Polly Morey.
I called on Americans to support a liberal philosophy based on democracy.
What does that mean for black Americans?"
He was praising the University of North Carolina at the same time
in which she refused to study "Poly" there.
As you can see, a black character writes blunt candidness for the president in the thirties,
It demands that he not be a hypocrite.
I felt the growing concern over his silence on civil rights
He refused to even speak in public
For a federal bill against the death penalty.
“Have you raised your voice loud enough against burning our people?”
I decided Polly.
To send a copy to Eleanor Roosevelt.
Mrs. Roosevelt quickly replied,
The letter arrived with her personal signature.
"I read a copy of the letter you sent me..."
The White House (Washington)
“I completely understand your position.
But great changes happen slowly.
The south is changing, but don't be pressured to change it quickly."
(Eleanor Roosevelt)
That showdown between Polly and the University of North Carolina.
It was indicative of what she called, "typewriter confrontation."
A woman applies to the University of North Carolina.
Polly wrote letters that were published in black newspapers.
So many pay attention to it.
And suddenly spread on the radio.
An unknown black woman applied to the University of North Carolina.
It became national news.
My family panicked when they found out.
Because they thought they would be executed without trial.
The University of North Carolina was a defeat.
arrested on the bus,
Plus a whole lifetime of seeing insults distributed not only to me,
It's for the poor and the rural blacks.
It all came to a head
In the realization that if I am going to fight this battle of apartheid
I need a weapon and a skill.
It was then that I decided to enroll in law school.
What did you say
Your powers of concentration are amazing.
This is probably true.
When I was in law school,
My colleagues were running
The strangest arguments and conversations
Around me I was busy in...
Polly arrived at Howard in the fall of 1941.
There were a lot of civil rights issues in that era
Theoretically searching the corridors of Howard.
Thorghud Marshall
And William Hasty and Leon Ransom were roaming the halls there.
In the first two years of my studies, I was the only woman in law school.
Polly Morey, class leader, New York.
They didn't even let me speak in class.
1944 alumni, Howard University College of Law .
When I raised my hand, no one noticed me.
My teacher said, "I don't know why women go to law school anyway."
And I was shocked.
They talk about what they call "Jim Crow",
which we know is apartheid,
And she says, "What I'm testing is (Jane Crow)."
Black women don't just deal with segregation,
But it also has to deal with sexism.
I was not raised in a family that imposes limits on women.
And at the end of the year,
Rank the students and post their grades.
I was looking for my name, and I found it at the top of the list.
They let me talk in my sophomore year.
Morey became the advisor to the student branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
17 years before the anti- Wolworth sit-ins .
Whenever we went to downtown Washington, there were places we couldn't get into.
(Inez Smith Reed)
I remember Garfinkels, we couldn't get into it.
We could not enter downtown restaurants,
Nor the National Theatre.
I started experimenting with direct peaceful movement.
We started at the intersection of 14th and U Streets,
A restaurant called "Little Palace Cafeteria".
This was in the middle of the black neighborhood,
But he was only dealing with eggs.
We got there on a Saturday afternoon.
They refused to deal with us.
canteen
We took empty trays, and sat down at the tables,
We opened our books and began our study.
We filled that little place.
And it worked.
Amazingly, they succeeded.
'Students force café to end apartheid'
They succeeded in removing discrimination from U Street.
It's time for a direct attack
On the constitutionality of apartheid.
1944 - 10 years before the Supreme Court abolished
the principle of “separate but equal”
I chose for my final year research paper,
Should Plessy's ruling against Ferguson be overturned?
Plessy v. Ferguson was a Supreme Court case in 1896
Which ruled that it was acceptable to separate blacks in public
Like transportation and schools
As long as the means are separate but equal.
Basically, Thurgood Marshall and the Association for the Advancement of Colored People said,
“If the judgment is separate but equal, then our problem is with the law.”
Black institutions are not treated equally.
Not given the same amount of money
We will be separate, but we want equal resources."
Polly Morey said the logic of this whole thing is wrong.
Discrimination is inherently immoral
And what it does is it reduces the feeling of black people
With their dignity and personality.
The principle of separate but equal facilities is not only an illusion,
But on a positive note, its effect is that it hurts
The personality of the affected individual.
"for people of color"
“This whole thing has to be turned around.
You need a more important, comprehensive and bold strategy."
My colleagues laughed at me.
Spotwood Robinson, young faculty member
which the students liked,
Not only did he reject my idea,
Nicely enough before my $10 bet when I said,
The Plessy verdict will be overturned in 25 years.
Exactly 10 years later, in 1954,
This is exactly the strategy that Marshall and his legal team pursued
In the case of "Brown" v. Board of Education.
The Supreme Court delivered a historic and momentous ruling.
There will be equality in educational facilities for all people.
I went back to Howard University for a visit.
Spotts Robinson said plainly,
Polly, do you remember the civil rights paper you wrote?
I answered, "Of course."
He said, “In 1953, I produced that research paper
She was very helpful to us in our preparation."
He told me that without anyone knowing,
My simple argument made it to the Supreme Court.
Look around the hall.
Turn your heads and look around the room.
Do you see all the different people in this room?
This became possible with that ruling.
Yet when we tell that story,
With that iconic image of Thurgood Marshall.
Standing on the steps of the Supreme Court,
Nobody talks about Polly.
Tradition was that first on the law class from Howard University.
He will automatically get the opportunity to study at Harvard.
To complete his studies of law.
Polly Morey graduated first in her class.
The Chairman of the Alumni Committee replied, "Dear Miss Murray,
Initiate your scorebook
And your picture indicates
Until you're not of the kind that deserves to go to Harvard."
Every part of her identity rejects institutions
that she wanted to be a part of, and most importantly,
She earned the right to be a part of it.
Polly joined Berkeley. She obtained a master's degree in law.
This was the beginning of her legal career.
New York City
Despite being one of the most trained lawyers,
Polly couldn't get through the door of a New York law firm.
Polly was discriminated against on the basis of race and gender.
She finally set up her own company
And one of the most painful experiences
Is her going to court to represent a client
Suspicion of a witness in "Polly"
as a whore.
Because of course it is impossible to be a lawyer.
Polly was barely making ends meet.
“I ate a lot of cheap burgers to save money
I was infected with a tapeworm."
Department of Psychiatry, Bellevue Hospital.
Polly was in and out of hospital, too, due to depression.
Morey has had an emotional breakdown almost on a yearly basis.
turmoil and suffering.
She needed some help from her doctors.
July 13, 1942, Dear Dr. (Edelsberg),
After the good news of your experiments with sex hormones,
I made an appointment with you to discuss my emotional issue...
A prolonged emotional and mental struggle.
Hormone injections may restore balance."
Polly went to doctor after doctor asking for testosterone.
"Personal and confidential"
Polly pleads with the doctors, "Do I have migratory testicles?"
Presence of male organs secreted in the abdominal cavity.
"It may be explored by tests , x-rays, and exploratory surgery."
It takes great courage to speak from experience
He can't even put it into words.
“I would be very grateful for anything you can do
Because my life is somehow intolerable
at the current stage."
Doctors examined "Poly". They did an X-ray.
Before, Polly was excited about the exploratory surgery,
Because Polly was sure
that the surgeon would find two migratory testicles,
The surgeon found an inflamed appendix and removed it.
But he found nothing abnormal.
Dear Miss Morey,
I am sorry
But medical science can't quite keep up with your conclusions.
Doctor (Joseph Edelsberg)"
“What does it mean to misplace someone’s disorder?
What does it mean to claim a lot about someone's accomplishments
And writing books about many aspects of a person's existence in this world
In the end, let's ignore the side we don't understand
Or who doesn't make us feel comfortable?"
She hesitated to include Morey's gender struggles in her autobiography.
Other researchers said, "This is her private life."
But I've come to think that one can't understand
The reason Mori was ahead of her time
Without understanding her sense of gender non-belonging
Make it border more cash.
And that made her come up with one of the most important ideas
in the 20th century,
The classifications of race and gender are arbitrary
It is not a legal basis for discrimination.
Dear President Roosevelt,
I am black, one of the most oppressed sectors of your people.
Can you imagine for a moment the anger?
that may rise within you when you realize that you as a human being,
You were distinguished and separated from your human brother?
(Polly Morey)"
When Polly wrote those angry letters to the White House,
Eleanor wanted to understand the young woman's motive.
"December 19, 1938"
I was texting Mrs. Roosevelt,
And I've been asking her urgently since the University of North Carolina accident.
The fact that she was the first lady of the nation
It didn't make me so impressed that I moderated my criticism.
This is what made our friendship great.
Polly was taking her friends and relatives to lunch
At Eleanor's apartments in New York.
Eleanor has become a surrogate mother.
There was a huge difference between Polly and Eleanor
In social background and status.
But they have many things in common.
orphaned in their childhood,
Their mothers-in-law are close to an old woman.
They loved to read. They loved writing.
And they find joy in raising dogs.
This is not a romantic relationship.
I really became a friend
Discussing matters other than politics.
I think we were two souls alike, if I dare say so now.
But I had no difficulty understanding it.
“One of my young best friends is a charming lawyer,
Polly Morey, who was so excited sometimes
But I love her very much.
Eleanor Roosevelt, article in Ebony Magazine.
She could have been so kind.
But it was impossible to feel the unbearable burden of racism
Which might make us scream.
Some of my best friends are black (Eleanor Roosevelt)
1943 (Detroit)
Most blacks weren't surprised when riots broke out in Detroit.
As the ethnic tensions caused by
It was constantly growing during the war years.
"Chase black whites on trams in the (Detroit) race"
Detroit police joined the crowd and killed 16 people.
"Blind justice sees only people of color"
President Roosevelt was strangely silent.
His comment on the events was released more than a month later.
The recent outbreak of violence
It endangers our national unity and comforts our enemies.
I'm sure every true American regrets this." Quote ends.
It sounded so evasive that I sat down right away
I wrote an angry poem.
"What did you get black,
When they threw you down the drain and smashed your teeth
And they smashed your head with batons
And they hit you in the stomach?
What happened when I called out to the highest-ranking men?
What did the highest men say, O black?
Mr. Roosevelt is remorseful."
After years of writing for a living,
Lloyd K. Garrison, whom I met at Howard University,
He called me to tell me the amazing news that his company,
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison wanted to help.
In the lawsuits section.
That was a job that provided Morey an income
More than she got in her life.
This astonishing good fortune made me anxious.
I was now a middle-aged woman
I re-entered a very competitive profession,
One of 3 women in the firm and the only black woman among 65 lawyers.
It was my most pressing problem all these years
It is dealing with the unit of working women.
Fortunately, Irene Barlow, office manager and staff,
I shared my place in the world of men.
Renee acted with a look of calm self-confidence.
Her strong and attractive face and blue green eyes
I radiated generosity and kindness.
Renee invited me to lunch as a courtesy to a new employee.
Our conversation was hesitant and solemn.
But our discovery that we both belong to the Episcopal sect
It was the beginning of a spiritual bond,
Using lunch breaks to attend Wednesday masses
At St. Bartholomew's Church on Park Avenue.
Renee took care of Polly,
(Mary Norris)
To help her by saying, "Don't wear this. Do this."
They became close friends.
Although my personality and that of Renee are completely different,
The harmony of our friendship resulted in pure joy.
We were drawn to each other for mutual support.
1959 (Popularville)
On the evening of May 4,
MacCharles Parker's body was found floating
In the Pearl River near Poplarville.
Parker is dragged from his cell by a gang of masked men.
He was awaiting trial for the rape of a white woman.
A execution mob catches a lion in Mississippi.
"It is feared that a rape suspect who was taken from his cell may be dead."
To have a man executed without trial as late as 1959
He seemed to symbolize the brutality of the American regime.
It happened after all the violence in Little Rock,
and racial integration at Central High School.
Only violence and more violence happened in the south
The murder of "Mac Parker" seemed to be the culmination of those events.
This was written on the occasion of the lynching of Mac C. Parker .
I am an Episcopalian, and I deliberately recite this prayer.
We beseech You, O Lord, to enlighten our darkness.
Teach us not to fear dogs that howl at a distance.
No footsteps in front of the door.
Nor the butt of the gun on the window glass.
Deliver us from all perils and dangers for this night.
Everyone has a breaking point.
My breaking point came with Mac Parker's death.
Kelly rash.
And I felt I had to leave the United States.
Polly gave up her highly respected job at Paul Weiss law firm.
She applied for the position of a law professor and was accepted
At the newly established Faculty of Law in Ghana, in Africa.
'Let colonialism go'
(Accra, Ghana)
Law education in a West African country
which gained its independence only two years ago
Allow me to satisfy a burning curiosity
On the African element in my genealogy
I spent 18 months in Africa.
I studied it the way I studied law in my graduation remembrance.
Polly was right there in the middle of those independence movements.
This was exciting but also problematic.
It soon became apparent to me
that the president of Ghana has dictatorial tendencies,
It curbs freedom of expression.
I was a human being committed to human rights
Whether you are in North Carolina or in Accra, Ghana.
The government was concerned about what Polly had taught the students
On the US Constitution,
والستقلال والديمقراطية.
"I arrived one day to find
6 members of the crime investigation department in uniform
They sit in line.
I felt like I couldn't stay in the country any longer."
My time in Africa assured me
I belong to the new world.
I feel completely American like everyone else.
Black Americans go back to the very beginnings of this nation.
Our blood, our sweat and our tears
And our memories are built in the details of this nation.
I am convinced that our destiny lies in the United States.
I was promised a fellowship from Yale University to study my Ph.D.
Polly Morey fascinated us so badly.
(Eleanor Holmes Norton)
Here is an older woman, who could have been our mother.
"We demand equal rights now!"
Most black students participated in the civil rights movement.
I don't think I knew by the time I came to Yale.
Polly participated in protests and sit-ins in the capital.
As far as we know,
We are the ones who started the protests with the sit-in movement in the sixties.
We knew nothing about the very brave African Americans
Who did not mention history what they did.
Polly Morey was way ahead of her time
She was even unveiling new problems every day.
This is an issue that troubles the nation a lot.
When Morey was at Yale,
John F. Kennedy formed a Commission on the Status of Women.
The Chair of the General Committee was Eleanor Roosevelt.
I want the potential of women to be used to the fullest.
Eleanor made sure that Polly was assigned to the study group
that researched women's civil and political rights .
"Show her it's a man's world"
"You mean a woman can open it?"
If you remove all plugins,
You will find that the essence of tyranny is a lack of respect for one's personality.
All women understand the meaning of
Diminished sense of dignity and personal worth
because of one's gender.
What exactly was your role in the establishment of the National Organization for Women?
I was an institution.
Polly meets Betty Friedan.
Betty, Polly, and about 30 other women decided
It is important to have a new organization.
Betty pulled out a napkin at a lunch meeting
And I started writing that we form "naw."
(Sonia Pressman Fuentes)
Let's make women a part of mainstream American life, now.
28 women signed.
Thus, the National Organization for Women was born.
or "naw".
Polly was trying to devise a new strategy
Advances in the efforts of women's rights.
And it did.
we are the people
"Article 14."
"No state shall make or enforce laws..."
"A person may be denied the equal protection of laws."
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution led the way
To resist discrimination on the basis of race.
Polly Murray made the argument
That the 14th Amendment can really be used
To defend women's rights as well.
That was a revolutionary idea.
For those of us who were from the era of the civil rights movement,
That sounded intriguing, and I hope you get the background.
first and foremost
In the minds of African Americans
Discrimination against people of color.
I have to ask myself, "(Eleanor), why weren't you a feminist then?"
But there was no feminism at the time, with the exception of Polly Morey.
“Women’s rights are part of human rights,
The general climate appears to be in favor of renewed judicial attacks on sexism.
(Jane Crowe and The Law) by (Polly Morey) and (Mary Eastwood)
Six years before (Ruth Bader Ginsburg's) first Supreme Court case
for gender equality
In the mid-1960s, Polly was on the ACLU's board of directors.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit today
to force a suburb in st louis
To accept a low-income, ethnically integrated housing project .
'Apartheid is a moral error'
The ACLU has been hard at work on civil rights issues.
'We protest against discrimination in schools'
But on the issue of women's rights, they were like any other institution
in our society at that time.
Women did not have sufficient representation on the board of directors.
Polly was pressing them to move.
I wrote a letter to prove it
That Ruth Bader Ginsburg should be on the board.
(Ruth Bader Ginsburg)
Polly was feisty.
Polly had specific ideas,
Sometimes people disagree with ideas.
Polly urged the ACLU to accept
Gender diversity.
They are always the ones to test
Most types of discrimination
(Chase Strangio)
They are the ones who have the insight to devise a solution. Polly was that person.
In one of the ACLU cases in the South,
Blacks were removed from the jury.
Mori's argument was,
At the same time as we were discussing that black men should not be excluded,
Women should not be excluded either.
This is a violation of their rights under the Equal Protection Clause.
Violation of the 14th Amendment.
"A US District Court in (Alabama) has ruled in favor of the Civil Liberties Union."
The law prohibiting women from serving on juries
violates the 14th Amendment."
The court that handled the case was using our terminology.
After many losses and many failures in a lifetime,
This was my greatest victory.
What you did became very important.
So important that even Ruth Bader Ginsburg...
I was invited to work on a case later in the Supreme Court,
Reed vs Reed
She used Polly's work and took credit for it.
Judge Ginsberg relied on the analysis developed by Polly.
We weren't inventing anything new.
We used to say the same things Polly did years ago
At a time when society was not ready to listen.
What I often say is that I lived to see my lost causes win.
'We want equality'
"They marched with greatness like the first woman."
Women's liberation
“Try women as persons, not as wives.”
“The stars are your beacon and the earth is your inheritance.”
"Repeal all abortion laws now."
"National Organization for Women"
“Do not surrender the fire of your soul to anyone.
(Polly Morey)"
I think we are in an era of drastic change.
I didn't have the extra responsibilities
Exhaustion.
For me, having privacy was very important.
You must understand that Polly was a very careful person,
and discreet.
Did you know anything about Polly's personal life at the time?
I didn't know at all.
Polly and Renee were very close.
you never lived together,
But Renee Barlow was the love of Polly Morey's life.
One's being may be touched once in a lifetime
With a rare, very creative and very loving spirit
Even one's life changes with that encounter. (Polly Morey)
Dear Polly,
I'm in the bedroom listening to Bram's Fourth Symphony.
I'll start solving the New York Times puzzle.
I wish you were here to share it."
"Dear blanket,
Yes, I look forward to spending more time.
Dear Charlie Brown,
There's more to be said, but I'll keep it until we see each other."
Dear Linus,
I look forward to Friday night."
They met in hotels,
Then you worry about the money you wasted.
But they were close as married couples in the way they supported each other.
“I am glad your mother had the opportunity to breathe in the gentle breeze.
My love and kisses, (Polly)"
“Be brave.
You have what it takes and more! Lots of love, 007"
"Lots of love, 007"
For years, Renee has been Morey's support.
I let her do it
More than I've been able to accomplish before.
on air
This is WGBHFM Public Radio in Boston.
Our guest tonight is Dr. "Polly Morey",
Lawyer and leader in the civil rights movement.
Now she has turned into a poet.
I want to reverse what I said.
I am a poet turned lawyer, not a lawyer turned poet.
I think the time is right for you to read The Dark Testament .
"I was a black slave who was guided by the North Star"
I was an immigrant crouching on a ship,
The dream was always repeated.
The dream has always been freedom."
Martin Luther King was murdered by a sniper in a motel in Memphis.
Martin Luther King Jr.
On the possibility of reconciliation between people.
was dr. "King" for the last two years of the barrier
between the black community and the white community.
My feeling is if this country is destined to survive,
We must live together in harmony.
We must continue to press for all of our demands.
Black students began to take over college campuses across the country.
Demanding black studies programs.
So, Brandeis University invited Polly Morey to serve as a professor
As a symbolic gesture to say, "See? We accept others."
"(Brandeis), 1968"
I was walking on campus
And I saw that little brown woman,
(Ernest R. Myers, former Brandeis student)
I asked someone who you are.
He said, "This is Professor Murray."
And I knew I wanted to be on that woman's side.
We studied at Brandeis because of the transition year program,
And we were very poor too.
We come from families who did not have books.
Developed a legal studies class at undergraduate level.
The 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution contributed greatly to meeting the needs of Negroes.
This historical development had certain unexpected consequences.
She was active.
Then she continued saying the word "nigger".
It seemed to me that niggers...
And you can hear the whisper in the little black section.
talking about social change,
Get off the law.
“We will definitely deal with the Negro Division.”
Polly went to Brandeis sharp mentally,
But insisting in its own ways on certain things.
"retired judge"
I thought we should all be referred to as Negroes.
This is the word "nigger" with an uppercase "in".
In the south, it was always printed with the humiliating little "in".
I was immediately drawn to the capitalized "in" version ,
Which seemed to give dignity to my identity.
Still my favorite word to describe people of color
I am not comfortable with the word "black" in lowercase.
black is beautiful
Free Hoi!
Free our warrior
Free Hoi!
black is beautiful
Free Hoi!"
And you can imagine that in the days of the civil rights movement,
black power movement,
There's a little lady who teaches at Brandeis.
And you're talking about niggers.
She has struggled to ethnically integrate student dormitories and restaurants since the 1940s.
The new generation that appeared in the sixties,
They came and wanted to separate the student dormitories.
As if they are opposing the previous generation to them.
It's hard to comprehend.
Last January, black students occupied a building at Brandeis University.
They demanded a black studies program.
Black students took over a building,
My office was in that building.
Brandeis needs black professors.
Polly thought the students were separated
About reality and history.
And they thought it was separated from them.
Avoid it.
Did Polly say anything about that?
I think her feelings were hurt.
That was clear.
Polly couldn't understand it.
After all her fanaticism in her youth,
She really struggled to understand the spirit of youth,
If she was angry 30 years ago and they're still dealing with the same challenges,
Of course they will be angrier after 30 years.
Supports black students (Malcolm X)
Black students who wanted to be like "Black Panthers",
They thought it was subservient to whites
Not wanting to take control of the building.
She did not like the word "black".
But if that's all they know, they miss the point.
For every young black man on that campus,
And every woman in that sanctuary,
History was embodied.
We even visited her house and she welcomed us...
And every wall in her house was made of books,
From top to bottom, books are everywhere.
For me, that was bliss.
And I think the first question I asked was, "Have you read all these books?"
And she said, "Yeah, the books I haven't read, I haven't put them on the shelf yet."
We trusted her because we came from educational environments
Where people used to insult us if we didn't know something.
She always respected a person because he is a human being.
I remember feeling a little special.
She smokes Camille's cigarette and places it on the tip of her lip.
do you remember that? - Yes
And she was taking a breath from that cigarette,
It's like, "You have to learn something, nigger."
Mori turned 60 and was worried
of not having enough money in her old age,
So I demanded to install at work.
A letter to the work confirmation committee:
I want all the rights, privileges, and status that a tenure at work gives me."
A letter from the minutes of the work confirmation committee:
The application was refused due to lack of talent in Miss Morey's published writings
intelligence, and imagination.
"Lack intelligence. Not up to standards."
Polly's request was refused.
This was completely ridiculous.
Therefore, the battle began.
From (Polly Morey):
I think the committee may not realize the fact
There are other criteria that you may have the ability to imagine
More than (the ivory tower)."
“My contributions became part of the laws ,” Polly said .
So many ideas that you take for granted now
It was a revolution when I first applied it."
Polly came up with a lot of ideas
What was the legal structure for challenging discrimination regimes?
We cannot understand legal movements for justice
Without understanding Polly's role in it.
"I don't want anything more
of equality.”
In the end, the university president gave Polly a job.
I will try to finish the book after another chapter.
This is the hardest chapter for me
Because he deals with one of my best friends.
Renee takes care of the house.
Rene rated all the books.
I took care of the dog.
I kept Polly Morey's diary.
If you can't find anything,
"Renny, do you know where this is?" things like that.
Most people didn't know that Polly was a lesbian,
We all covered it up.
How did you know? Did Polly tell you that?
No, I don't know how to describe it,
But if you mix with someone
- Long enough... - Long enough.
...you get a hint.
You just know.
Did Polly talk about Renee?
She talked about... Renee was her friend.
- That's how you spoke to us. Always a "girlfriend."
Renee got sick.
The breast cancer has recurred.
I underwent treatments that didn't work,
She died in 1973.
Most people who deal with dying and dying from cancer...
I think we are the walking wounded.
For those who loved (Irene Barlow):
Forgive me if I'm harsh
After the news of her tragic death.
You lost a friend.
I lost my silent partner.
I revolt in my anguish,
I argue with God."
Renee's death changed my life.
I felt the urgency of completing my mission on Earth
in my remaining days."
I seem to remember my life,
that all human rights problems
The ones I subscribed to were moral and spiritual problems.
And I saw that the profession I had devoted my life to, law,
She couldn't give us the answers.
And I asked myself, "What do you want to do with the time you have?"
Oriented in the direction of priesthood
or church service.
She suddenly told me that she was going to be ordained in the Episcopal Church.
I was shocked.
Polly was very religious.
I must say I didn't understand that part of it, but it was.
No one really understood what she was doing.
Will you leave your job and go where for 4 years?
a seminary? are you crazy
Today in the old Church of the Cross,
At the same altar where her grandmother was baptized as a slave,
The Holy Eucharist will be celebrated for the first time
By Reverend Dr. Polly Morey.
By the time Polly graduated from seminary,
Based on the efforts of Polly and many other women,
The Episcopal Church decided to grant women the right to ordination to priesthood.
Polly Morey was the first black woman to paint
in the Episcopal Church.
The Holy Gospel of our Lord "Jesus" Christ, according to "Luke".
Glory to Christ.
May the peace of the Lord be with you.
with you too
I came. Thank you, Polly.
What I was trying to tell them
while I give them bread,
It is my love for everyone.
I believe that reconciliation takes place between individuals groping their way in the dark,
They try to communicate with each other.
It was not "me" as an individual.
It was a historical moment
when you acted as a symbol of the past,
For suffering and for strife,
I was trying to communicate symbolically
All of them support me and have been responsive.
She wasn't very listening when I was growing up.
She was good at talking.
After the seminary, she became better at listening.
Despite her bravery in her struggle,
And, oh,
It was just as pathetic
When she was leading people spiritually in the church.
I support that...
A tool for teachers and lawyers
And the two priests are the same,
Words, communication and writing.
I wrote short stories.
She wrote "The Proud Shoe" which is about her family history.
She and James Baldwin were the first African American writers
They are both members of the respected MacDowell Colony.
By the early eighties,
She just finished what she called, "that horrific autobiography."
There was also evidence of pancreatic cancer.
What scares you the most? as a general question.
What scares me the most?
Maybe death without ending...
Which I want to finish.
It was important for her to tell her story the way she wanted.
I knew she was working on another book, a memoir,
And it was racing against time.
Her attitude was, "Let's finish this book."
What I tried to do was present a picture of the life of a nigger
reflecting the fact that we went through a lot like other Americans,
And in spite of all the hardships and tribulations,
There are moments of fun and humor.
I am very close to the end of this manuscript.
page 504.
If there are moments of deep despair,
There was that sustaining knowledge that by striving for human dignity,
Being part of a continuous movement through time and history,
and connected to higher moral forces in the universe.
"(Polly Morey) passed away in 1985 at the age of 74."
Polly's autobiography, (song in a tired throat),
It was published shortly after her death."
Polly left a legacy.
So why don't we take advantage of it?
We literally live in a world built by Polly Morey.
In 2016, it was considered Polly's childhood home.
A National Historic Landmark."
Some scholars now argue that American history cannot be taught
Not to mention Polly Morey's life.
In 2020, based on Polly's work,
The Civil Liberties Union won
A case before the Supreme Court bans discrimination against lesbian, gay and transgender people."
When we were presenting our case before the Supreme Court
To ensure the protection of LGBTQ members
In accordance with federal laws prohibiting sex discrimination,
It would have been impossible to do this without Polly.
You may not have realized, Polly.
It became a beacon of consolation
To many heterosexual, transgender and gender identifiable.
And future generations, that's what I've become.
In 2017,
Yale University named "Poly" for a boarding college.
College (Polymore)
"It was the first college at Yale named after a person of color.
And the first college named after a person who is considered LGBT.”
Today we're sitting at Pole Morey College.
Back then, Polly Morey would never have dreamed of anything like this.
If Polly could keep herself completely occupied,
I think that would have improved the contributions that Polly made.
For law, religion, writing or poetry.
What kind of magic would have happened?
If you study the past, you should forget the idea
That the people who became respected and celebrated
Only they deserve to be celebrated and respected.
Mrs. Tina Lowe
Polly is someone whose time hasn't come yet.
It may not come fully.
We must work to achieve a world in which its time will come.
“Give me a song of hope, and a world where I can sing it.
Give me a song of kindness, and a country where I can live.
Give me a song of hope and love, and the heart of a brunette girl you hear.
(Polly Morey)."
Naji Behnan's translation
Quality Supervisor: "Abdul Rahman Kallas"