Pauli Murray Residence

"Not open to public. Private residence. Sans Historical Landmark notwithstanding an important historical residence because of the writing that Pauli Murray accomplished while living at this residence. Pauli Murray residence from 1947-1960. Murray was friends with a lawyer from Brooklyn, Charles L. Kellar, who owned the building at 388 Chauncey St. Murray lived on the top floor of building. While in Brooklyn, Murray wrote some of their most important work. The “bible” as Thurgood Marshall called the legal compendium that Murray authored, an encyclopedic collection of State’s Laws on Race and Color, was used by Marshall and the NAACP to end federal segregation with a win using Murray's strategy of using the 14th ammendment in the landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education. The “bible”, which was a collection of State’s Laws on Race and Color for every state in the nation displays Murray's patient deliberate foresite. It was a thankless labor to compile but vital in crafting a strategy that would stop fighting for an Equal Rights AMMENDMENT (which has languished for the last 100 years without ratification) and instead shift to the more pragmatic use of the Equal Rights PROTECTION clause of the 14th ammendment. Proud Shoes, Murray’s memoir, was also written while living in Brooklyn. During this period, Murray lived with Irene (Renee) Barlow while at 388 Chauncey Street, after Murray’s two elderly aunts Pauline Dame and Sallie F. Small left in the mid 1950s. Irene Barlow moved in for a time after 1955 death of Murray's aunt Mary "Pauline.""