On January 8, 1977, Pauli Murray became the first African American woman ordained as an Episcopal priest.
On January 8, 1977, at the Washington National Cathedral, Pauli Murray made history by becoming the first African American woman ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church. This momentous occasion came just months after the Episcopal Church voted in 1976 to allow women's ordination to the priesthood, and Murray seized the opportunity at the age of 66, following a full and remarkable career as a lawyer, civil rights activist, and poet.
Murray's path to the priesthood was deeply personal and spiritual, shaped by decades of activism and a profound Christian faith that had sustained her through the death of her close friend Renee Barlow and other personal trials. Her ordination represented the culmination of a lifelong journey of faith intertwined with her fight for justice.
This achievement was historically significant not only as a first for African American women in the Episcopal priesthood but also as a symbol of the broader movement for gender equality within religious institutions, which had long excluded women from positions of clerical authority. Murray's ordination broke through both racial and gender barriers simultaneously, embodying her lifelong commitment to dismantling intersecting systems of oppression.
As a priest, Murray continued her ministry of reconciliation and justice, notably celebrating her first Holy Eucharist at the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill, North Carolina—the same church where her grandmother had been baptized as a slave. Murray's legacy in the Church continues today; she was added to the Episcopal calendar of saints in 2012.