First published posthumously in 1987, Pauli Murrayâs Song in a Weary Throat was critically lauded, winning the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and the Lillian Smith Book Award among other distinctions. Yet Murrayâs name and extraordinary influence receded from view in the intervening years; now they are once again entering the public discourse. At last, with the republication of this âbeautifully craftedâ memoir, Song in a Weary Throat takes its rightful place among the great civil rights autobiographies of the twentieth century. In a voice that is energetic, wry, and direct, Murray tells of a childhood dramatically altered by the sudden loss of her spirited, hard-working parents. Orphaned at age four, she was sent from Baltimore to segregated Durham, North Carolina, to live with her unflappable Aunt Pauline, who, while strict, was liberal-minded in accepting the tomboy Pauli as âmy little boy-girl.â In fact, throughout her life, Murray would struggle with feelings of sexual âin-betweennessââshe tried unsuccessfully to get her doctors to give her testosteroneâthat today we would recognize as a transgendered identity. We then follow Murray north at the age of seventeen to New York Cityâs Hunter College, to her embrace of Gandhiâs Satyagrahaânonviolent resistanceâand south again, where she experienced Jim Crow firsthand. An early Freedom Rider, she was arrested in 1940, fifteen years before Rosa Parksâ disobedience, for sitting in the whites-only section of a Virginia bus. Murrayâs activism led to relationships with Thurgood Marshall and Eleanor Rooseveltâwho respectfully referred to Murray as a âfirebrandââand propelled her to a Howard University law degree and a lifelong fight against "Jane Crow" sexism. We also read Betty Friedanâs enthusiastic response to Murrayâs call for an NAACP for Womenâthe origins of NOW. Murray sets these thrilling high-water marks against the backdrop of uncertain finances, chronic fatigue, and tragic losses both private and public, as Patricia Bell-Scottâs engaging introduction brings to life. Now, more than thirty years after her death in 1985, Murrayâpoet, memoirist, lawyer, activist, and Episcopal priestâgains long-deserved recognition through a rediscovered memoir that serves as a âpowerful witnessâ (Brittney Cooper) to a pivotal era in the American twentieth century.