ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Spencer A. Murray is the Founder and Executive Director of NO HARM, National Organization for Healing and Redefining Manhood. He is a speaker, writer, minister, and conflict transformation practitioner who specializes in working with men and boys as it relates to unhealthy ideas of masculinity, and how these ideas contribute to violence towards self, women, and the community.
He is a former educator with Detroit Public Schools where he taught at Paul Robeson Academy, an African-Centered School, and the Academy of the Americas, a Dual Language Immersion School. He holds a Master of Arts in teaching from Wayne State University, a Master of Arts in Educational Leadership from Western Michigan University, and a Doctor of Ministry degree from New York Theological Seminary, where his focus of study was Conflict Transformation. His doctoral work focused on the systemic influence of patriarchy in religion, and its tendency to oppress and perpetrate violence towards women. Based on his dissertation, Spencer published his first book, Conspiracy of Silence: Religious and Patriarchal Roots of Violence Towards Women.
He is currently a Violence Prevention Consultant, as well as a Certified Family Violence Intervention Practitioner in the state of Georgia, where he intervenes with men to disrupt abusive behaviors. As a skilled facilitator, Spencer encourages accountability while inviting men to transform their thinking about themselves, women, and manhood. In addition to his harm reduction work, he is also an Adjunct Professor in Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, where he teaches the introductory course, Skills in Conflict Transformation. As a Restorative Justice Consultant with the Georgia Justice Project, Spencer creates spaces for healing, restoration, and an awareness of our shared humanity.
In this episode, Spencer shares a poem about his near suicide and the choices he made as part of his transformation.
His years of experience working with men and boys, as well as his own journey to free himself from the prison of toxic masculinity, drives his passion to lead men to a deeper understanding of themselves - an understanding characterized by a reverence for the feminine aspect of creation. Spencer is convinced that a man who has true knowledge of self, will strive do no harm.
Spencer lives in Atlanta, GA with his wife, Erica Parks Murray.
