Pauli Murray and Caroline Ware: Forty Years of Letters in Black and White

Chapter 6. The Last Phase

1 6 the last phase After 1972 the correspondence slowed. Ware’s eyes were giving her trouble and Murray was busy. There is plenty of evidence that they remained close and that Murray was often at The Farm. In 1973, after the death of her close friend and comrade Renee Barlow, Pauli decided to leave Brandeis and undertake training the for holy orders in the Episcopal Church. Lina writes a long letter of support for Pauli’s application to the General Theological Seminar and sends her a copy. She writes, in part: [. . .] Pauli combines many qualities which make her not only a very exceptional but a most valuable candidate for the new career she hopes to enter. Her absolute integrity and total commitment mean that she will pour into her new activities all her very considerable abilities and wealth of varied experience, which cannot fail to enrich and inspire those with whom she comes in contact. As I have watched her through the years, I have seen her enter one area of activity after another, achieve the competence and excellence which would enable her to challenge complacencies and break out new frontiers, and then to o√er constructive leadership [. . .]. She inspires people’s confidence in themselves [. . .] and never misses an opportunity to call attention to those whose contributions might be overlooked. This she does with unfailing warmth and compassion , as well as a shrewd sense of what a person may need. [. . .] Murray is accepted as a special student. In Song in a Weary Throat, she says that the work at the seminary was much more demanding than anything she had encountered in law school. True to form, her journal includes much evidence of discontent with those in positions of authority at the seminary. She soon concluded that the seminary was organized for the last phase 163 young white men and was not hospitable to women or people of color. She writes some of her characteristic letters to the leaders of the institution. She herself says she soon had a reputation for being ‘‘abrasive,’’ since—in her view—her tendency to probe and question was not welcome. The battle of the women who had been allowed to take the training but were not immediately allowed ordination is dramatically told in Song. The women finally won the right after a turbulent meeting in Minneapolis in 1976. The only letter I have seen—possibly the only one that survives—in which Murray, so to speak, talks back to Ware is on the letterhead of the General Theological Seminary and is marked in ink ‘‘Not Sent.’’ They had apparently disagreed about Ernest Gaines’s novel The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman or about Murray’s castigation of a New York reviewer who denied that such people as Miss Jane Pittman could exist. Perhaps behind Murray’s reaction is some pent up discontent with the fact that Ware still treats her as someone to be instructed. Early in their friendship when Pauli was an unknown law student, she had cast Lina in the role of guide and mentor. This was a role that came naturally to Ware and characterized her relationship with several young women besides Murray, such as Mary Norris, Dorothy Jackson, and Mary Gresham. Now Murray was a mature woman with considerable national stature, but the general tone of the relationship had not changed even though Ware admired Murray and went to extraordinary lengths to be helpful to her. She may have been unaware of just how ‘‘teacherly’’ she often was. 1 March 5, 1974 [Handwritten note:] Not Sent Dearest Skipper: I wish you trusted my judgment more about what I think is important . You and I do not always see eye to eye on such matters, but I am about as mature as I will ever be and therefore must make the final decision. I happen to think ‘Miss Jane Pittman’ is an extremely important event in the history of communication with respect to a problem we have wrestled with together as well as separately over more than thirty years. I also happen to think that I have a point of view which needs to be stated as often and as publicly as possible—because my goal is understanding, upon which reconciliation is based. I am not above a little self-promotion in the process. The enclosed copy of my letter to the Washington Post 164 the last phase...