Proud Shoes

First published in 1956, Proud Shoes is the remarkable true story of slavery, survival, and miscegenation in the South from the pre-Civil War era through the Reconstruction. Written by Pauli Murray the legendary civil rights activist and one of the founders of NOW, Proud Shoes chronicles the lives of Murray's maternal grandparents. From the birth of her grandmother, Cornelia Smith, daughter of a slave whose beauty incited the master's sons to near murder to the story of her grandfather Robert Fitzgerald, whose free black father married a white woman in 1840, Proud Shoes offers a revealing glimpse of our nation's history.

A memoir that chronicles one family's struggle for freedom and education through the Civil War and its aftermath.

Originally published in 1956, Pauli Murray tells the story of her grandparents, delving into the realities of slavery, survival, and miscegenation in the pre-Civil War/Reconstruction era in the South.

"A significant contribution to our understanding of the black experience in America. . . . Fascinating." — Publishers Weekly

The Reverend Dr. Pauli Murray (1910–1985) was a lawyer and civil-rights activist, America's first black woman Episcopalian priest, and a founder of NOW.

Patricia Bell-Scott is professor of family and child development and women's studies at the University of Georgia. She was founding editor of SAGE: A Scholarly Journal on Women and has been a contributing editor to Ms. Magazine. She has published several books, including Life Notes: Personal Writings by Contemporary Black Women, Double Stitch: Black Women Write About Mothers and Daughters, and Flat-footed Truths: Telling Black Women's Lives (with Dr. Juanita Johnson-Bailey).