Exclusive: Producer Talleah Bridges McMahon talks My Name Is Pauli Murray
Currently out in theaters and coming to Prime Video October 1st from Amazon Studios is the acclaimed documentary My Name Is Pauli Murray, directed by Betsy West and Julie Cohen and produced by Talleah Bridges McMahon.
Fifteen years before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat, a full decade before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned separate-but-equal legislation, Pauli Murray was already knee-deep fighting for social justice. A pioneering attorney, activist, priest and dedicated memoirist, Murray shaped landmark litigation—and consciousness— around race and gender equity. As an African American youth raised in the segregated South— who was also wrestling with broader notions of gender identity—Pauli understood, intrinsically, what it was to exist beyond previously accepted categories and cultural norms. Both Pauli’s personal path and tireless advocacy foreshadowed some of the most politically consequential issues of our time. Told largely in Pauli’s own words, My Name is Pauli Murray is a candid recounting of that unique and extraordinary journey
Murray’s great-niece Karen Ross, left, the producer Talleah Bridges McMahon, the filmmakers Julie Cohen and Betsy West and Ross’s daughter, Kyrah Boyce.
Talleah Bridges McMahon is an award-winning director and producer who has made documentaries for PBS, CNN, ABC and Amazon. Previous projects include directing the Emmy-nominated PBS series Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise and co-producing The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, which garnered Emmy, Peabody, and duPont-Columbia awards. Talleah also produced MAKERS: Women Who Make America and contributed to the Academy Award-nominated documentary feature Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience as well as several Emmy®-nominated specials for ABC News.
Blackfilmandtv.com’s Wilson Morales caught up with McMahon as she about her involvement with the Pauli Murray documentary.