The Many Lives of Pauli Murray

"That student's name was Pauli Murray. Her law-school peers were accustomed to being startled by her-she was the only woman among them and first in the class-but that day they laughed out loud. Her idea was both impractical and reckless, they told her; any challenge to Plessy would result in the Supreme Court affirming it instead. Undeterred, Murray told them they were wrong. Then, with the whole class as her witness, she made a bet with her professor, a man named Spottswood Robinson: ten bucks said Plessy would be overturned within twenty-five years."

-"THE MANY LIVES OF PAULI MURRAY" Kathryn Schilz, The New Yorker