Black Excellence: Linda Rae Murray

Welcome to “Black Excellence” at UIC.         

The Office of Student Success and Belonging, with Dr. Aisha El-Amin.          

Recording of Dr. Martin Luther King 00:09         

[Applause] Believe in yourself and believe that you’re somebody.         

Clips from 1995 movie “Panther” 00:17         

His intention is that we study and master a bunch of different things.        
Why are you here?          
Study and master a bunch of different things.        
I’m proud to introduce our new Minister of Information.        

Aisha El-Amin 00:26         

I’m Dr. Aisha El-Amin.         

Tariq El-Amin 00:29         

Welcome to “Black Excellence.”    

Linda Rae Murray 

We don’t need a bunch of heroes. We need ordinary people doing ordinary things, living their lives, but doing it in a way that strengthens our community and improves the world. 

Aisha El Amin 

In this episode of the “Black Excellence” podcast, we sit down with Dr. Linda Rae Murray, a physician whose passion for justice was ignited at a very young age. Dr. Murray takes us through her unexpected journey to medical school and the powerful career she built advocating for health equity and social justice. Inspired by the legacy of her great-grandmother, she opens today’s episode by reflecting on a pivotal moment that helped shape her life’s trajectory.  

Linda Rae Murray  02:16 

I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and I grew up in the in the public housing and the projects in Cleveland, and went to high school there. I can think of a couple of defining moments, really, for my whole life. You all aren’t from Cleveland, so you may not know, but it’s like a typical industrial city, and we lived in one of the old sections in the projects near the central part of the city, near downtown, and starting in the fourth grade, I was transferred out into a program for gifted children, of course, located in the white neighborhood. So,you know, this is before school buses and stuff we had in Cleveland. So, I would take public transportation, a couple of buses early, early in the morning, to get out there. And that was very different school than my elementary school, where my brother and sister went.  

And I remember they had school assemblies, just like they do in movies. They had school assemblies, and one day for one of the patriotic holidays — I don’t know which one, I can’tremember which one — a young man who had graduated from this elementary school in Cleveland — we went up to the sixth grade for these schools — he had gone to school there,he had graduated. He came to school, and he had — he was a member of the Marines. So, he returns to his alma mater, dressed in his, you know, dress Marine uniform. And I was a very diligent student, you know, I believed in the country. I stood for the Pledge of Allegiance and everything. He came to the assembly, and he chastised the students. He said: “You know, you all stand up every day” — again, this is in the 50s — “and you say the Pledge of Allegiance, and you say it really fast, and you don’t really think about it, and you don’t take it seriously,” and you know, “this is a great country,” and blah blah. And he said, “We’re gonna stand up, and I want you to say the pledge with me, and I want you to really think about what you’re saying.”  

So, being an overachieving student, I stood up, put my hand on my heart, and I just moved my mouth because I wanted to totally concentrate on the pledge. And I never said the Pledge of Allegiance again. I said, “This is all a lie.” As you go through the pledge, “one nation under God with liberty and justice for all,” that’s not true. I’m in the fourth grade, you know, I said, “This is not true.” You know, I was a good student. I was on the honor roll. There were many times when I was not only in the assembly, but maybe on the stage of the assembly, but I would not put my hand over my heart, and I would never say the Pledge of Allegiance, and I’ve never said it since then. So that, to me, is a defining moment. 

Linda Rae Murray  05:16 

So, when I was in the fourth grade and had this issue, we weren’t citizens. I mean, we were technically citizens, but many of our people couldn’t vote. In the North, we could vote, but you know, in the South, where most Blacks lived, you couldn’t vote. This is before the civil rights movement. This is before the sit-ins. This is before, more importantly, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and so as we try to celebrate this country’s 250th anniversary, we have not even begun as a country. We shouldn’t even mark the start date till 1965, and then we’ve just had that destroyed by the Supreme Court.  

I was involved in the civil rights movement in Cleveland. I graduated from high school in 1966, so this is a time period in Cleveland where the schools were segregated. I was a member of the student CORE, Congress of Racial Equality. We were trying to integrate the schools. My high school was a working-class white high school. It always had a small group of Blacks that went there, that lived in that neighborhood, and then those of us that from outside of the neighborhood, the parents in the community organized against us. And in the day that that happened, I remember coming to school, getting there very early. It was at the end of the bus line, and the people were there with their buggies and their infants. People had taken off of work, and they surrounded the school, threw bricks at the windows, and we really had to organize to get the police to escort us through that crowd onto buses to escape back to our Black neighborhoods.  

So those are the kind of defining moments of the ’60s. I’m sorry to say we’re seeing similar things again today. So, by the time I came to college, I was already active in the civil rights movement. I was already angry that this nation disrespects us, kills us, not only Black people, but other people of color. And so that’s sort of how I arrived to Chicago. 

Aisha El-Amin  07:48 

So you’re a ’73 graduate from UIC, your bachelor’s degree. Tell me what UIC looked like. I mean, of course, you kept going. So ’73 for your BS, ‘77 for your MD, ’80 for your MPH. So,what did UIC look like in 73? 

Linda Rae Murray  08:08 

I came to Chicago in 1966 and entered the University of Chicago, and I actually want to tell this story, because I assume we’re going to talk about my work in healthcare. And I was I was a math major, an undergraduate math major, and I was just minding my own business, living here, going to college. My parents, my family, accidentally moved to Chicago while I was in college. But I went home with my roommate, a sister, who lived in New York, and her parents were doctors, and I remember I was going with some friends, we’re college students going out to party, and her mother trapped us in the kitchen. Why? Because she wasn’t ready. And her mother, who was a doctor, said, “Well, young lady, you know, what — what are you going to do? What are you going to do when you graduate? What are your plans?”  

Now, again, this is the ’60s, and I said, you know, I’m a revolutionary. I’m gonna be, gonna be out here fighting for the struggle. And she looked at me with total disgust, and she said, how many Black doctors do you think we have in this country? Again? I’m a smart girl, now, I’m in college. I said, not enough — I had no idea — not enough, right? That was a safe bet. And she quoted a number. It was under 4,000, but she quoted an exact number, like 3,732 some, some specific, exact number. And she said, and half of those, let’s just call it 4,000, are over the age of 50. Now I’m in my what, 19? 20 years old? Over the age of 50? I couldn’t imagine living that long. And then she said, and half of those over the age of 50 are over the age of 60, and if you don’t go to medical school, we’re going to die out.  

And I was in my third year at University of Chicago. I came home, I thought about it, and that’s when I made a decision to try to go to medical school. And. I, you know, as was typical, I think for private schools, you know, you start off with some scholarships, and they put more loans and more loans. And I said, Well, I can’t be — I’m a math major, I don’t — I took a little bit of science. I don’t have chemistry and all these, so I said, I need to transfer to Circle Campus. I’m not gonna be taking all these loans out.  

I was able to transfer the Circle, get a job at the CTA, back in the day, on the L’s, where you took, where there were ticket agents, and work, and not have any financial aid from Circle. The only other thing that happened, which is relevant, is, just as I made this decision, I got pregnant. I remember calling them up and saying, Well, I got two things to tell you. I’vedecided to try to go to medical school, and I’m pregnant. And so their response, they were overjoyed on both events, but their response then was to, all their children had left, they bought a two-flat which, which I still own, and I moved back with them. That’s the only way.  

So, this doesn’t happen by individuals. It happens by a village. It really does take a village, not only they keep you awake and to teach you what you need to know, but to support you. So they bought a two-flat, and I moved there, in with them. And my son’s 54, 55 years old now, you know. I remember he was very cooperative. He arrived a week after my organic chemistry final. And the school grew very fast. And I remember the last year taking embryology and all this stuff, as I was applying to medical school, they called me into the office in that big administration building, and they said, “Why haven’t you graduated, Linda?” And I said, “Well, I’m applying to medical school.”  And don’t forget, I’m a math major, so I’ve long ago finished all my math requirements. OK, you’re taking up space, valuable space, in our science courses. So, we’re graduating you in December, so, which I hadn’t planned to graduate till June. And I said, OK. I’m a child of the ’60s, so I went down the hall and changed my major to art history, and I didn’t have no credits in art history, so they couldn’t force me to graduate. Then in the spring, when, after I got accepted into medical school, I came and changed it back to math and graduated. That’s my experience with Circle, I will tell you. 

Aisha El-Amin  13:26 

That’s working the campus. So you you’ve seen it go from Circle to, you know, UIC. What’s some of the things that you’ve noticed? And through this time, you obviously had some influential people to have the passion that you have for health equity. Can you talk about where that passion comes from, too? 

Linda Rae Murray  13:46 

It comes from a it comes from that little girl thinking, Well, if you’re going to, if you’re going to be a doctor, you are supposed to be helping people not get sick. But again, the only thing that saved me is, I’m a child of the ’60s. We are a public institution, and I will say, that this is one profound difference and our strongest point between my experience at other private institutions where I’ve taught, and Circle and the University of Illinois, we are a public institution. This is a state school. I live in this state.  And I am here to learn some skills to help my people and people of the state.  

And I think if people keep that in mind — to remember why they’re going, why do you go through all of this stuff? So, health equity is like, most of the people that I knew growing up didn’t have access to healthcare. They didn’t have access, they didn’t go see a doctor regularly. They had the usual diseases — diabetes, high blood pressure — you know, run over by cars, getting stabbed and shot. So, it’s clear that we needed that particular technical skill, but it’s also clear, it was also clear to me that it was not just the pill that you needed or the surgery that you needed. You needed to be able to live a life of dignity and a life of equality. 

Aisha El-Amin  16:30 

That’s pretty powerful. So, as you think about all the things that you’ve gone through, what keeps you motivated after decades of advocacy and leadership in this area. How, like, whatis your motivation that you continue to do the things that you’re doing? 

Linda Rae Murray  16:48 

I give that to my great-grandmother. My great-grandmother was born in the Reconstruction period. She was not a slave herself, but she was born during Reconstruction, but her older siblings — and her aunties and uncles — they were born into slavery. And when, when we were little children and living in the projects in Cleveland, she would come, she would, you know, rotate between her children and grandchildren, and she would stay with us. And he would make us come in at high noon and she would feed us lunch. We’d have to rest quietly for a little while — we couldn’t go right back out. And she would, she would talk, and she would tell stories about her people, her family and how she grew up. And one thing she told me, which I never forgot. She said, “Linda, white people are always going to knock you down. No matter what anyone tells you, they will always try to keep you down. And the only question you ever have to answer in life is, how often you gonna try to stand back up?” She didn’t tell me what to do. She just said, that’s the only question you got to answer but if youif you are going to continue functioning, you either have to accept that they’re going to walk over you. They can walk over you with an MD and call you doctor, and do, and give you a nice salary, but they’re still walking over you. Or are you going to stand up and fight for yourself and your family? So, to me, there was I never considered it to be a choice. Those are the only two choices, either lay down or let someone walk over you or stand up. 

Aisha El-Amin  18:45 

That’s powerful, too. I have to ask you about the picture of Nelson Mandela behind you. What influence has he had on you? I see that, that poster, and it’s, I know the folks that will be listening to this and not watching it, but it has the red, yellow and green overlay over his face. So, could you just tell us a bit about what he means to you? 

Linda Rae Murray  19:16 

Well, I think, I think he’s really one of the many heroes that we have in this in this past century, and and to me, that’s a picture of him as an elderly man. When I was young, when I was in college, you know, we had posters. I think the people on the planet that had the closest experience to Black Americans really has been the South Africans. They understand race. I think the United States is still the number one racist, but South Africa is a close number two. And he was also from a position of privilege, but the fact that he was able to stay true to a liberation movement, the fact that he was able to survive in jail all those decades, the fact that he came out with such dignity. I remember the day he was released. I think therewere about 15 or 20 people at somebody’s house just watching it. So, I had the pleasure of meeting him when he came to Chicago. So, I really admire him as someone you can actually touch, a real human being — again, not some mythical cartoon character — and I think that helps me think about people that are involved in struggle. And so, we don’t need a bunch of heroes. We need ordinary people doing ordinary things, living their lives, but doing it in a way that strengthens our community and improves the world. 

Aisha El-Amin  20:46 

Absolutely. So I have, as we close it, I have three sentence stems that I’d like you to finish. The world needs more… 

Linda Rae Murray  20:57 

We need more peace. More peace. 

Aisha El-Amin  21:04 

The next one is: Health equity is important because…. 

Linda Rae Murray  21:10 

Because we’re all human beings. It’s a basic sense of justice. We have to have social justice. We can’t have peace without social justice. 

Aisha El-Amin  21:20 

And the last one is: Always take time to…. 

Linda Rae Murray  21:24 

Always take time to listen to other people, even people that you disagree with, so that you can try to understand what it is they’re thinking and how their mind works. As a physician, that’s my favorite activity when I work with patients, is to try to understand what they think about their problem is. That’s always more interesting than what I think as a doctor. 

Aisha El-Amin  21:48 

Well, you continue, wow, you continue to be amazing and inspiring, and much gratitude for spending some time with us, sharing your story and leaving us something to chew on, because there is we do need a lot more peace in the world. So, thank you so much. 

Linda Rae Murray  22:10 

Thank you.  

Tariq El-Amin