Dark Testament, Verse 8  

Hope is a crushed stalk
Between clenched fingers.
Hope is a bird’s wing
Broken by a stone.
Hope is a word in a tuneless ditty—
A word whispered with the wind,
A dream of forty acres and a mule,
A cabin of one’s own and a moment to rest,
A name and place for one’s children
And children’s children at last . . .
Hope is a song in a weary throat.

Give me a song of hope
And a world where I can sing it.
Give me a song of faith
And a people to believe in it.
Give me a song of kindliness
And a country where I can live it.
Give me a song of hope and love
And a brown girl’s heart to hear it.  

— Reverend Dr. Pauli Murray

Reverend Dr. Pauli Murray (1910 -1985) was a Black civil rights and women’s rights activist, a lawyer, gender pioneer, and author of poetry and non-fiction. Drawn to the ministry in 1977, Murray was the first African American woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest, in the first year that any women were ordained by that church. Rev. Dr. Murray wrote many articles and books on race and gender relations in addition to Dark Testament and Other Poems, 1970 and a posthumous memoir entitled Song in a Weary Throat.  

My Name Is Pauli Murray, a new documentary film that is available for streaming on Amazon, explores the dynamic life and work of Rev. Dr. Murray, who died in 1985, by weaving together Murray’s own voice with the testimonies of those who her well, and those who learned from and were influenced by her. There is a recent article about her called Pauli Murray-Priest, Lawyer, Organizer—Refused to be Diminutive by Alice Crosby in Sojo.net-October 4, 2021.