A Name Scrawled on a Napkin

On June 30, 1966, Pauli Murray sat in a Washington, D.C. hotel conference room, watching government officials dismiss yet another resolution calling for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce women's workplace protections. Murray, a Black civil rights lawyer who had spent decades fighting what she called "Jane Crow" — the double burden of racial and gender discrimination — had seen enough polite patience.

During a lunch break at the Third National Conference of Commissions on the Status of Women, Murray joined Betty Friedan and a small group of frustrated delegates around a table. Friedan scrawled three letters on a paper napkin: N-O-W. The National Organization for Women was born that afternoon with Murray as a co-founder, her legal brilliance shaping its founding statement of purpose. She insisted the organization fight not merely for women in the abstract, but for all women — across every line of race and class.

The prophet Micah declared what the Lord requires: "To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Notice the verb — act. Not contemplate justice. Not admire it from a distance. Act. Murray understood that justice loved in theory but never pursued in practice is no justice at all.

The Church is called to the same restless faithfulness. Wherever dignity is denied, wherever people are told to wait a little longer for what God has already declared they deserve, Micah's ancient charge still echoes: Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly — but walk.