Preserving Black History Has Never Been More Vital

Bold. Assertive. Unafraid of questioning people or circumstances. That’s how 82-year-old Rosita Stevens-Holsey describes her “Aunt Pauli.”

“Even if she was talking with a supervisor, a general, or the president of the United States, she always made known what she was thinking — what she felt was not right and needed to be changed,” Stevens-Holsey told Capital B.

That “Aunt Pauli” was Pauli Murray, a legendary civil rights activist and legal theorist whose contributions to the struggle for Black liberation have long been overlooked, according to scholars.

While a law student at Howard University, Murray helped to establish the Congress of Racial Equality, participated in sit-ins, and coined the term “Jane Crow” to describe the discrimination beleaguering Black women. During a seminar, Murray articulated the novel argument against “separate but equal” that would inspire Thurgood Marshall’s team in Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case that ended racial segregation in public schools.

Today, the under-sung life and work of Murray, who died in 1985 at the age of 74, are getting some much-deserved recognition through the recently opened Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice in Durham, North Carolina. The center has transformed Murray’s childhood home, built in 1898, into a sort of museum that champions civil rights by hosting events and exhibits in history, education, the arts, and more.

It’s the kind of institution that feels especially vital now, as the country braces for an administration that’s anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion and that has pledged to punish any person who challenges it. At least five of President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for positions in his Cabinet and administration are contributors to Project 2025, the conservative manifesto that would radically scale back some of the country’s most significant civil rights gains of the past half a century.

“We need people to stand shoulder to shoulder and protect our democracy — to save the values we cherish,” said Stevens-Holsey, a seasoned community organizer.

The center is just one of the many institutions that are working to celebrate Black history at a ferociously uncertain political moment.

The Past as a Tool to Advance Social Justice

Located at 906 Carroll St. in Durham’s historically Black, working-class West End neighborhood, the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice was a longtime coming.

In the early 2010s, locals joined together to advocate for investment in basic services, including affordable housing, infrastructure, and education. They pushed for another sort of investment, too.

“Neighbors knew that a remarkable figure had once lived in a home built more than a century ago that was slated for demolition. You heard me right: Murray’s home was slated for demolition in 2010,” Angela Thorpe Mason, the center’s executive director, told Capital B. “And so those neighbors formed a coalition and pushed for Murray’s home to be preserved as part of that investment effort.”

The center was officially established as a nonprofit in 2012, and it was designated a national landmark in 2016 by the National Park Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior (notably, only 2% of the 95,000-some entries in the National Register of Historic Places elevate the lives and legacies of Black Americans). But the rehabilitation process was completed only this year; the grand opening was on Sept. 7.

“It’s been the fortune of a lifetime to make good on what’s been a decade-long promise to preserve Murray’s childhood home so that we can use it as a space to leverage history as a tool to move contemporary social justice work forward,” Mason said.

The center partners with the North Carolina Bar Foundation to help transgender Americans sort through the legal issues related to name changes and gender identification on official documents. These efforts are a particularly poignant way to honor Murray, who was queer and today might be considered nonbinary.

In another marriage of history and activism, the center also offers resources and trainings for students and educators interested in bringing social justice frameworks to their classrooms.

These days, the center’s very existence is a political act. Republican lawmakers are endorsing legislation to strip nonprofits they oppose of their tax-exempt statuses. Analysts fear that the bill would be used to attack institutions that draw attention to Black experiences.

Additionally, Trump is attempting to staff his administration with people who peddle the myth of “reverse racism” and seek to banish Black history from our schools.

“When we tell people about the effort to take Toni Morrison out of the curriculum or ban Jimmy Baldwin, it’s conveying to people something important,” Kimberlé Crenshaw, the co-founder and executive director of the African American Policy Forum, told Capital B. “These are figures who transformed our lives and addressed our condition. When [conservative actors] are trying to take this history away, it means that we have to fight for it all the more.”

Mason shared those sentiments. She explained that the current moment echoes some of the social and political struggles that Murray faced.

“We uplift Murray’s life and activism as a reminder that you, too, can do what Murray did,” she said. “We can provide a physical space for people who are doing movement-building work to organize and strategize in safety.”

Other Bastions of Black history

Legacy Sites: Through three spaces — the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the Legacy Museum, and the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park — the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Sites lean into the power of place, challenging visitors to confront history where it actually happened.

The sites are in and around Montgomery, Alabama, a region known for its duality. It once contained a large population of enslaved Black Americans; it later became the cradle of the Black liberation struggle, an area where movement leaders strategized on how they might topple Jim Crow. Together, the three sites offer first-person historical narratives, art, interactive exhibits, and more to document the long and ongoing history of anti-Black violence.

National Civil Rights Museum: Like the Legacy Sites, the National Civil Rights Museum takes advantage of its terrain. The museum, located in Memphis, Tennessee, is anchored by the former Lorraine Motel — where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 — and tells a rich story of Black struggle and achievement.

The history that the museum explores is vast, and includes the global impact of Black Americans’ battle for equality. But its permanent exhibits focus largely on the Civil Rights Movement — the Montgomery Bus Boycott, student sit-ins, freedom rides, Black Power — and injects new life into this history through an array of oral histories, artifacts, and films.

Frederick Douglass National Historic Site: Call it a hidden gem in our nation’s capital. The Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, operated by the National Park Service and perched atop a 50-foot hill in the majority-Black neighborhood of Anacostia, preserves the home of the great abolitionist and orator who was born into slavery in 1818 and honors his legacy.

Visitors can tour the grounds of Douglass’ historic home, which he named Cedar Hill, watch a film on the social reformer’s life, and explore exhibits that feature his speeches and writings. For students ages 6 to 18, there’s something extra special: an annual oratorical contest hosted at the site where youth can enjoy the power of language by performing a section of one of Douglass’ famous speeches.

“Institutions like the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice help to bind communities together by promoting and protecting their values, their traditions, and their histories,” Stevens-Holsey said. “It’s just so crucial for communities to learn about one another — to remember and celebrate their identities and aspirations.”

Black Voters and the Fight for Democracy is a multipart series that explores the stakes of the 2024 election for our communities. This project was produced as part of the Advancing Democracy Fellowship.