African-American essayist and critic whose writings assert the vitality and the powerful influence of black people in forming American traditions.

Murray attended Tuskegee Institute (B.A., 1939) and New York University (M.A., 1948); he also taught at Tuskegee. In 1943 he entered the U.S. air force, from which he retired as a major in 1962.

Murray's collection of essays, The Omni-Americans (1970), used historical fact, literature, and music to attack false perceptions of black American life. South to a Very Old Place (1971) recorded his visit to scenes of his segregated boyhood during the 1920s. In Stomping the Blues (1976), he maintained that blues and jazz musical styles developed as affirmative responses to misery. He also cowrote Count Basie's autobiography Good Morning Blues (1985) and wrote the novels Train Whistle Guitar (1974) and The Spyglass Tree (1991) and the essay collection The Blue Devils of Nada (1996).