Barbara Lau is the Founding Executive Director of the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice, a position held since February 2009, where efforts focus on transforming Murray’s childhood home into a national center dedicated to history, education, the arts, and social mobilization. Lau previously served as the Pauli Murray Project Director at the Duke Human Rights Center and has extensive experience as a Principal Consultant at Barbara Lau Arts Associates since June 1995. Lau has directed community documentary projects that encompass public art, community exhibitions, and educational programming. Earlier roles include Folklife Program Coordinator at the Southern Arts Federation, where responsibilities involved coordinating performing arts tours and traditional arts exhibitions. Barbara Lau holds a Master of Arts in Folklore Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Urban Studies from Washington University in St. Louis.
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Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice
The Pauli Murray Center is a nationally significant history site, anchored by Pauli Murray’s childhood home built by her grandparents in 1898 at 906 Carroll Street in Durham, North Carolina. By connecting history to contemporary human rights issues, the Pauli Murray Center will activate visitors of all ages to stand up for peace, equity, and justice. We are open and welcoming to everyone: students, families, visitors to Durham, people of faith, aspiring young LGBTQ activists, civil rights lawyers, divinity school students, artists and poets, history-minded West End neighbors, scholars, and community leaders. Our programming encompasses public history, education, arts and activism. Together we will create the Center as an historic site, incubator, oasis, and sacred space. We are still in the process of becoming a fully operational, visitor-ready site. Over the next few years that will mean completely rehabilitating and making an accessible historic home and education center and building a robust calendar of workshops, on the ground and virtual education; community dialogues and invitations to action that address enduring inequities; and creative arts programming.