Liz Murray grew up in the Bronx, New York, in severe poverty, raised by parents who struggled with chronic drug addiction and mental health challenges. The family relied heavily on government welfare checks and food stamps, but money frequently ran out, leaving Murray and her sister to scavenge for meals and wear unwashed clothes.
By the time Murray was 15, her mother had died of AIDS-related complications, and her father moved into a homeless shelter. Murray was left living on the streets, sleeping on subway trains, park benches, and friends’ couches. Determined to change the trajectory of her life, she enrolled at the Humanities Preparatory Academy in Manhattan, completing four years of high school coursework in just two years while still functionally unhoused.
Murray applied for and won a prestigious New York Times scholarship for students overcoming extreme adversity, which allowed her to matriculate at Harvard University. She graduated with a degree in sociology, wrote the New York Times bestselling memoir Breaking Night, and co-founded The Arthur Project, a nonprofit providing relationship-based mentorship to middle school students in under-resourced communities.
