For this Socratic Seminar, have students read Pauli Murray’s 1963 speech titled “The Negro Woman in the Quest for Equality.” It may be helpful for this text to have students do some background research on Pauli Murray, who was a Black activist that scholars now think may have been trans and/or nonbinary. Because those labels did not yet exist in the 1960s, Murray used she/her pronouns at the time, but some scholars use they/them for Murray today. To extend this activity, consider having a conversation with students about the complexities of an intersectional identity in connection with the documentary “My Name is Pauli Murray.”  

After the seminar, lead a reflection in which students answer the following questions:

• How did gender and/or sexism impact the civil rights movement?
• To what extent is history’s portrayal of the civil rights movement as dominated by men symbolic of the larger problems women and gender-expansive people have faced throughout history?