- Just ahead on "Black Issues Forum", we take a close look at the Trump administration's decision to pull federal funding from the Pauli Murray Center for Historic and Social Justice.

We're exploring the future of our historic sites.

and what's at stake when the stories of Black trailblazing Americans are threatened with erasure?

Coming up next.

Stay with us.

- [Announcer] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you, who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

[upbeat electronic music] ♪ - Welcome to "Black Issues Forum".

I'm Kenia Thompson.

The Trump administration has withdrawn federal funding from the Pauli Murray Historic Center, which is an institution dedicated to honoring the life of a Black queer woman trailblazer who influenced civil rights, women's rights, and human rights across this country.

What does it mean when the support for the preservation of truth is pulled, and what message does this send to our communities?

Well, we're answering those questions today, and we're exploring what's at stake and why historical sites like this matter more now than ever, and what it means to protect our past in order to shape our future.

To engage in this conversation today, we've invited Executive Director of the Pauli Murray Historic Center, Angela Thorpe Mason, and joining her, we have Historian and NCCU Instructor of Public History, Andre Vann.

Welcome to the show.

- Pleased to be here.

- Thank you both for being here.

I think it's an important conversation for us to talk about as we kind of see the dismantling of these spaces that are for us, and for everyone, really.

Angela, tell me who Pauli Murray was.

- Pauli Murray is, frankly, one of the most remarkable figures of the 20th century.

Pauli Murray was a Black, queer, gender-expansive person who was a theologian, a feminist, an attorney, a civil rights activist, a creative, a poet, and an author.

And Pauli used all of that work to fulfill a lifelong mission of dismantling race-based and sex-based discrimination in the United States.

- Mm, and, Andre, when we look at all of that, 'cause that's a long list, right, how do we see her work impact us today?

- Yeah, well, I would say with all the great work that she had done, a little known history fact is that when the great Thurgood Marshall and Dr. John Hope Franklin and others worked to dismantle, and through the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, few knew that she was actually the one who put together long before this LexisNexis that was put together in terms of legal opinions, put together a real wonderful encyclopedia almost of civil rights cases all throughout the South.

And so here was one who was sort of way, way ahead of her time, or somebody say right on time, and who saw a clear vision, and also a link between the idea of working for equality and the idea of freedom, right, what freedom really meant.

And it meant that, you know, that rights that are held by us, rights that are held by all Americans, you know, should be respected, and so she used her legal education to sort of do that.

But in Durham, you know, we would just say just highly respected, very influential family, the Fitzgeralds, and she is not one who has been lost in memory, right?

We know her well.

- Yeah, indeed, and when we drive past the site, her home, right, we see that all the time, the impact or the imprint of her presence.

Talk about the process of creating the historic site and what went into that decision?

- Yeah, so the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice comes out of grassroots advocacy.

The center is rooted in Pauli Murray's childhood home.

It was built by her grandfather, Robert Fitzgerald, in 1898.

And there, it has stood proudly in our historically Black, historically working-class neighborhood in Durham that we call the West End, and part of being a historically Black and historically working-class neighborhood means that the West End experienced generations upon generations of disinvestment.

In the early 2010s, neighborhood advocates came together to ensure that they had basic rights in the neighborhood.

So this is basic infrastructure, this is livable housing, this is affordable housing, but we also know that investing in our marginalized communities also looks like preserving history.

Folks knew that the historic home, the childhood home of Pauli Murray was slated for demolition at the time.

And so again, neighborhood advocates came together to ensure that this sacred space was preserved in the early 2010s.

And again, the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice arises out of that grassroots advocacy effort and provides an opportunity for us to think expansively about how to activate historic spaces for social good.

We're a center for history, but also social justice, so we exist to uplift Reverend Dr. Murray's life and legacy, but also move contemporary social justice work forward today.

- I'm curious, how did you get linked up with the site and become the executive director?

What was your impetus?

- Yeah, so I have been doing Black cultural heritage work primarily in the state of North Carolina for a decade.

I've worked across the entire state to uplift and preserve and amplify the stories of Black Americans, of Black North Carolinians, and in this work, I came to know the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice.

So I had a long history of working with the institution as they sought to grow, and so when the opportunity came about to lead it, I decided to try my hand at it.

And so have had the fortune of being the chief steward of Pauli Murray's childhood home and the executive director of the center since 2023.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- Well, I'm sure that you've done great work so far.

- I have.

- Andre, when we look at funding now being challenged for sites like the Pauli Murray Center, what are we seeing, not just in North Carolina, but nationally?

What does that look like?

- Well, tragically, I just think it just appears to be a real assault upon our memory, right?

Assault upon our heritage.

The idea of acting as if this history did not occur, right?

And that's why we use that term, erasure, it's a appropriate word because it almost alludes to this fact that history did not happen here.

Well, here in Durham, history did happen there, and the Pauli Murray House is very important.

It's an important feature, but the question of funding just suggests a lot in the sense that we see not just here in the state of North Carolina that receives funding through the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, but all throughout the country as well.

I mean, I think this idea of sort of trying to wipe away this history is- - Why are they trying to wipe away the history?

- Yeah, well, I think there's some thoughts and ideas that by rejecting other history, it elevates up someone else's history, right?

And I think that, therein lies sort of the danger of that.

The idea that you could try to, you know, first of all, there was always this idea that we needed more stories, first of all, not less stories.

And so complicating this matter of this financial funding really creates, I think, in my mind, you know, a real lack of opportunity, I think for young folk who are growing up.

And that's why I see, you know, adults will get it.

But it's young folk who will not sometimes have the opportunity to be informed about these historical moments and historical figures.

Like Paul Murray and others, who really challenge the times in which they live.

And I think we have obligation to kind of help make sure that we remind them that, you know, this history is important.

And shouldn't be so selective about who gets to see it and what we call the sins of omission.

You know, you leaving out individuals, but yet you're trying to elevate up others and how do you do that?

- Angela, so funding has been pulled, it's official.

What impact has that immediately had on the center?

- Yeah, so I wanna be clear about what funding has been pulled.

And then what funding is currently at risk.

So a number of Black historical institutions and history and heritage institutions across the United States are funded by a federal body called the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

IMLS is the primary funder of museums, historic sites, cultural spaces, and libraries across the United States.

And in 2024, the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice was the only institution in Durham to receive federal funding through the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

We received nearly $331,000 to continue the effort to uplift Pauli Murray's life and legacy.

- I wanna pause there.

So you're the only institution to receive funding.

How many other institutions in the state that could have potentially received funding?

- Oh, over 60.

Several dozen.

- Wow.

- Right?

And so again, in 2024, only institution to receive IMLS funding through the museum grants for African American History and Culture program in Durham.

So this really signals how competitive this funding is and what a significant investment this is in North Carolina, in a small institution like ours.

In terms of that particular funding being pulled, that is 16% of my total budget for this year.

That is 20% of the center's anticipated budget for fiscal year 2026.

And again, this is not the only federal funding challenge that we're navigating.

Again, we received word that that grant, that funding was officially terminated.

And we're in the process right now of exploring what other federal funding is at risk.

We have applications out to the National Park Service right now.

- Okay.

- That are no longer being processed.

And so again- - Why is that?

- That signals to us again, that the federal government is cutting back overall on investing in marginalized stories and funding marginalized spaces.

- So the withdrawal of 311,000?

- 331,000.

- 31,000.

- Yes.

- What impact does that have?

- Immediately, this prevents us from moving forward on a couple of really major projects to offer that first and foremost, this funding provided us an opportunity to develop a new exhibition centered on Pauli Murray's spirituality, community, and humanity.

That exhibition no longer moves forward as a result of this disinvestment.

This funding provided us an opportunity to develop curriculum for eighth graders across the state that would ground them in Pauli Murray's life and legacy in a way that uplifted social justice and equity centered teaching pedagogies.

That work for our eighth graders stops immediately.

This funding also provided a staff position to the center.

We're an employer, right?

And so, now that we don't have this funding, we can't employ somebody who traveled to Durham to take on this new job opportunity just about six months ago.

So, again, it's got some pretty significant impacts to our center as a purveyor of Pauli Murray's story.

But it also has larger impacts to our ability to be an employer in the state of North Carolina and to shape our education system in vast and important ways.

- Wow, that's a deep impact.

- It is.

- Andre, when we look at that impact, 60 other sites across the state.

Are there more that maybe we aren't aware of?

- Yeah, well I want to add on that, you know, you think about how Durham, for instance, is one of the top 4% of places tourism and visits, right.

And no doubt, this is one of the places that many people come to visit.

And so, what concerns me more is that you talk about the question of economic impact, right.

The drivers.

What will bring people to the city of Durham for tourism.

We're talking about tourism dollars and visitors, the experiences.

And so when you remove these opportunities to sort of educate visitors when they come by this wonderful history and wonderful heritage, I mean you really are also impacting these local communities.

And so, that's what I would argue even more about.

That you're not just, in a sense, silencing that one particular museum.

You are really impacting the local community.

And I think that's what's being expressed here.

And that's important, right?

But that also creates an opportunity for this idea of recognition first.

That this is an important historic site.

- Right.

- That should be remembered and it should require a level of advocacy on the part.

You know, and information and inclusion about these stories is, I think, a part of that family.

- Absolutely, and I'd love to build upon some of what Andre has just offered.

I think it's important to recognize that for over a decade the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice was a preservation effort.

Right, folks worked for over a decade to preserve this childhood home.

Under my leadership the center has finally opened to the public.

We held our public grand opening last September in 2023.

And so consider a newly opened cultural space where folks are traveling from all over the world to visit.

School children are traveling from all across the state to visit and get connected to educational resources where social justice organizations from all over the state are visiting to incubate their ideas and to incubate their work.

And so again, you've got this newly opened cultural space that is having a deep economic impact.

- [Andre] Right.

- In Durham.

That is having a deep social justice and educational impact across the state of North Carolina.

- Yeah.

- Again, the implications of pulling federal funding to support us in doing that work are vast.

- Do you think that's, were we maybe on the radar because the grand opening and now we're seeing folks coming here and they thought, oh no.

- Yeah.

- That can't happen.

- I certainly think that's a part of it.

But to Andre's point, this is not happening in isolation.

I'm very intentional about naming the grant program that we were funded through.

Again, IMLS Museum Grants for African American History and Culture.

Most institutions across the country who have been funded through that specific program have had their grants terminated.

- [Speaker] Okay.

- Right, so what does this tell us about the federal government's efforts to censure black history nationally?

- Yeah, so if we look at long term impact, I know Senator Murdock was on a few weeks ago, and we touched on it briefly, and they said that they were working stateside, right?

To try to find funding, but that may not be enough.

Right, to continue the trajectory of the work that you've already started.

What happens long term if funding is not restored?

- Yeah, so long term, again, our ability to do our work is at risk, but I'm a leader who chooses to think about the opportunities that this challenge poses.

I certainly could be deficit minded, but that is not who Pauli Murray was and how they did their work.

And so that's not how St. Pauli is guiding me to lead.

So again, I'm thinking about opportunities.

I'm considering who can we build coalitions with in Durham and across the country when we consider institutions that are doing similar work than ours.

Again, that coalition building could be a really supportive mechanism to move our work forward.

We are in a place where I'm seeking to align myself with institutions and funders who still see the value in social justice work and black history and heritage work, and in uplifting queer histories and queer stories.

Those funders are still out there.

We are also leaning more deeply into our grassroots support.

Right, so looking to everyday people to contribute their gifts.

So whether that is financial gifts or their gift of time through visiting the center, each of those possibilities has a significant economic impact for the center and provides an opportunity to sustain us.

- Yeah, Andre, many of the things she listed are some of the things that we see funding supports.

Right, how does funding support in ways that we don't see?

- Yeah, well, I think one interesting aspect of that I think would be that, you know, first of all, you know, it starts, with those who really support places like this.

And I think, you know, you've touched upon a great thing that the question of advocacy is important.

And so I always like to say sometimes, you know, when folks try to limit the history of what happened and what occurred, it actually leads to an increase in discovery of those who want to know a whole lot more about the site.

And so I think the question of advocacy becomes, you know, to me, to the forefront, right?

As a very important way of helping people understand, you know, that here is a very important figure that should not be lost to time, because some have deemed, you know, one's lived experiences as contrary to their ideas and their views, right?

And so I think it says that, you know, there's more education that has to happen.

And it also requires, you know, again, as noted, that that level of support locally, state, and then keep on asking federally for this, because these are taxpayers dollars.

These are not, you know, one individual's dollars.

These are federal government dollars provided by the taxpayers and citizens of state of North Carolina, and it's a site worth supporting.

I think that, again, knowledge of this site is the most important thing, I think at this point in time.

- Mhm.

If someone's watching and they're like, you know, how does this history impact me?

How does Pauli Murray's history impact everyone, not just black America?

- Mhm, absolutely.

I would say in two primary ways, Pauli Murray is, Andre stated at the beginning of our conversation, framed a critical argument that led to Brown versus Board of Education successfully being argued before the US Supreme Court by Thurgood Marshall and his team.

Without Pauli Murray, you do not have Brown versus Board of Education.

- Right.

- And therefore, you do not have our contemporary education system, right?

A system that allows us to be educated together without discrimination, a system that's currently being undermined right now.

So that is one of Pauli Murray's major contemporary impact.

I'll also offer that Ruth Bader Ginsburg built upon legal theory that Pauli Murray created to ensure that gender based discrimination, particularly against women, was illegal in the United States.

So you and I get to move freely through space, place, especially our workplaces.

- Yeah.

- Because of Pauli Murray.

That's critical as well.

- Yeah.

Andre, if that wasn't enough.

- Right.

- Let's talk broader.

What impact do historic sites have, black historic sites have on our public, on our community?

- Yeah, well, black historic sites, what we call are time capsules.

Almost in a sense, a look back at the past, right?

But it also is a very unique and very interesting story about not just the site, but the makers of the site.

It's just a lot about that.

You know, I think as you mentioned, you know, it took us almost 10 years of advocacy to sort of get there.

And that within itself, you know, suggests a lot to you.

That there was some energy, there was some belief and idea that this history is worth telling and should not be sort of placed on a shelf, you know, mainly because of financial challenges.

I'm confident that most people of goodwill will recognize that, you know, we can't sort of place one history at the expense of another history and say one is greater than the other.

- [Host] Yeah.

- And merely by excluding it, you know, sort of helps gets folk there.

So I just think that, I think the more that can happen about looking at the full lived experience of Pauli Murrays and Porter, I always think about, I have all of her books, "A Song Anywhere Through."

One who delved in her own family's past and history in discovery of self, right?

- [Host] Yeah.

- And I think in seeking and looking at her own lived experience, her family's experience and impact from UNC Chapel Hill, where the Smith family, where it was, to the Fitzgerald's in Durham, you know, I think she represents that very unique experience to kind of navigate a world, not one that she saw, but a world that she aspired to be.

And I think that's what I like most about life of great Pauli Murray.

- Yeah.

- That she didn't anchor herself in the world that she was in then but she anchored herself in a world beyond and a belief beyond that, and that, to me, is a very important facet, I think.

- Pauli Murray was the ultimate Afrofuturist, right?

- Right.

- The work that she did to create a world where everyone belonged, regardless of race, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, again, is what I argue is Afrofuturism work, because it's not work that she benefited from, but understood that folks in the future would benefit from it.

- Well, I wanna give you an opportunity to share with viewers, if maybe they don't have a bunch of money, but they wanna give, they wanna support, they wanna give their time, what kinds of ways can they do that, and where do they find information about that?

- Yeah, so folks can go to www.paulimurraycenter.org to learn more about us and also to learn more about the advocacy tools that I'll name for you.

We're asking people to do three things.

One, if you're able, please give your financial gifts to the Pauli Murray Center.

Since receiving notice of our grant termination just about a month ago, we've raised close to $45,000.

and most of those gifts have been gifts that are one time and less than $100.

- We got like less than a minute, so those two other things.

- Yes, there's two things.

People can also visit the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice, and then finally, reach out to your lawmakers, so, city, county, state, and federal, they're listening.

- Thank you so much, Angela Thorpe, Mason, Andre Van, - Please, reach out.

- Thank you for enlightening us today, and I hope that the center continues to thrive under your leadership.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

- And I thank you for watching.

If you want more content like this, we invite you to engage with us on Instagram using the hashtag #BlackIssuesForum.

You can also find our full episodes on pbsnc.org/blackissuesforum and on the PBS Video app.

I'm Kenia Thompson.

I'll see you next time.

[upbeat electronic music] ♪ [upbeat electronic music continues] ♪ - [Narrator] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.