Category: YA Biography
Release Date: March 1, 2022
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-57869-076-3
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-57869-077-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021917275
eBook: 978-1-57869-078-7 Click Here to Purchase the eBook
Booksellers and Libraries: Order Here.

SYNOPSIS

Inspiring and timely, Pauli Murray’s Revolutionary Life is the riveting story of an African American woman, born in 1910, who blazed through the barriers of race and gender decades before the Civil Rights and Women’s Movements. Pauli Murray fearlessly rode freight trains dressed as a boy during the Great Depression and befriended First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt before embarking on a pioneering life of social activism, legal scholarship, and many firsts. In 1944, Pauli graduated first in her class at Howard University; in 1965, she was the first Black woman to earn a doctorate in law from Yale University; in 1966, she was a founder of NOW, the first National Organization for Women; and in 1977, Pauli was the first Black woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. Pauli never faced a barrier she couldn’t smash through, and her life as a feminist, civil rights lawyer, poet, author, activist, and priest paved the way for all to live a life of equality and purpose.

PRAISE

“Pauli Murray’s Revolutionary Life is an intriguing primer not just about a potent political activist's lifelong adventures. The author’s easy storytelling provides readers with an intimate tour—via this fascinating woman’s daring experiences—of America’s racist history and its heroic 20th century struggles for civil rights.”

—Peter Laufer, University of Oregon journalism professor and author of Up Against the Wall: The Case for Opening the Mexican-American Border

______________________

“Well researched with careful detail; beautifully and thoughtfully written.”

—Carol Carter, actor and playwright

______________________

“Pauli Murray’s Revolutionary Life is a fascinating untold story of apartheid America of the last century recounted in a straightforward, heartfelt manner that will have you both leaping for joy over Pauli’s successes and in tears over the humiliations she refused to suffer gracefully as a queer woman of color.”

—Dennis Broe, journalism professor and author of A Hello to Arms

______________________

“Black civil rights activist and pioneering feminist Pauli Murray’s unique story reaches a new audience with this lively narrative about her trailblazing life and her very American roots that crossed the color line. We see how she rode freight trains during the Great Depression, planned lunch counter sit-ins in the 1940s, and challenged the boundaries of gender identity, as she became one of the first women ordained in the Episcopal Church.”

—Bill Fletcher Jr., labor activist and author of The Man Who Fell from the Sky

______________________

“Pauli Murray’s Revolutionary Life is a young adult book which compellingly shines a light onto Murray’s inspiring family background and extraordinary life, along with her struggles with her sexual identity, to readers who may not be familiar with her story. I learned far more about this amazing woman as a result of reading it, and I’ll use it as a stepping stone to learn more about her, and her role in the movements for racial and gender equality in this country.”

—LibraryThing member kidzdoc

REVIEWS & IN THE NEWS

Independent Book Review, April 21, 2022: 45 Books We’re Excited About from Indie Presses and Indie Authors (2022 Releases)

Project Censored, 94.1 KPFA Radio, March 25, 2022: Project Censored – March 25, 2022 (Simki comes on at 31:49)

Story Comic Podcast, March 18, 2022: Storycomic Presents (Episode 150): Simki Kuznick, Author of ’Pauli Murray’s Revolutionary Life’

Women Writers, Women’s Books, March 16, 2022: Always Ahead of her Time, Pauli Murray’s Time is Now

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, March 10, 2022: Recent Books of Interest to African American Scholars

Kirkus Reviews, February 11, 2022: A compelling life story told in an engaging style.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Simki Kuznick grew up in the Bay Area before she moved to Washington, DC, where she had a long career as an editor for the US Government. Her writing focuses on what people with multicultural and multiracial heritage can bring to our understanding of what it is to be American. She edited a monthly newspaper, Poetry San Francisco, and was a founding member of Interracial Pride in Berkeley, California, while raising two daughters with her first husband who is from Eritrea. She completed her MFA in Creative Writing at American University in 2010. Her poetry explores the interactions between cultures in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. She and her husband, Peter Kuznick, who co-authored The Untold History of the United States with Oliver Stone, live in Bethesda, Maryland, along with their numerous reptiles and amphibians.