Born in Thomasville, GA on 2 July 1926, Murphy began his career as an African specialist while serving as visiting lecturer in social anthropology at South Africa's University College of Fort Hare (then the only college for non-whites in apartheid South Africa). He served the African American Institute in Washington (U.S.), New York (USA), Accra (Ghana, and Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania) between 1954 and 1970. From 1965 to 1970 he was the Institute's Executive Vice President in New York, retiring in that year to return to the academic field.

From 1971 to 1973 he completed his doctoral studies, then became full time consultant to Carnegie Corporation of New York. In 1975 he was named Coordinator and Chief Executive Officer of Five College, Inc., the consortium linking Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith colleges and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Murphy retired as coordinator in 1988, to serve as Five College Professor of African Studies, based at Smith College, until his retirement in 1991.

In retirement Professor Murphy has devoted himself to political activism, serving as Vice President and Steering Committee member of the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice; Steering Committee member of the Southwest Florida Peace Coalition, and as chief writer and consultant for the internet emailing service of Progressive Secretary.

A member of the Sarasota Monthly Meeting (http://sarasota.quaker.org/events.html) of the Society of Friends (Quakers), he is also an avid sailor and amateur home builder. He is married to Winifred WindRiver and has three children by a former marriage: Therese Murphy, Kathleen Murphy DeGrenier and Emmett J. Murphy III, who is known by being the drummer for the rock band Dinosaur Jr.