Durham civil rights, social justice activist to be featured on US quarter
Pauli Murray, the groundbreaking human rights activist who spent much of her early life in Durham, will be featured on United States quarters in 2024, the U.S. Mint announced Wednesday.
Murray’s quarter is being issued as part of the Mint’s American Women Quarters Program, which began last year and “features coins with reverse (tails) designs emblematic of the accomplishments and contributions of American women.”
“The ethnically, racially, and geographically diverse group of individuals honored through this program reflects a wide range of accomplishments and fields, including suffrage, civil rights, abolition, government, humanities, science, space, and the arts,” the Mint’s description of the program reads.
Described by the Mint as “one of the most important social justice advocates of the twentieth century,” Murray is noted for her work as a poet, writer, lawyer and activist, and for becoming the first Black woman in the U.S. to be ordained as an Episcopal priest.
Murray spent early life in Durham
Murray was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1910, but at a young age moved to Durham to live with her namesake aunt and her grandparents.
Murray graduated from Hillside High School in Durham in 1926, then moved to New York City to attend Hunter College, graduating in 1933 with a degree in English literature.
In 1938, Murray applied to attend graduate school and study sociology at the then-all-white UNC-Chapel Hill, but was denied admission because of her race.
Murray later enrolled in law school at Howard University, where she was the only woman in her class and where she coined the term “Jane Crow” to describe the oppression she faced as a Black woman. She graduated from Howard at the top of her class in 1944.
Throughout the 1930s, the Pauli Murray Center writes, Murray “actively questioned” her gender and sex, repeatedly asking physicians for hormone therapy and exploratory surgery to investigate her reproductive organs.
Murray’s legacy in the Triangle and beyond
Murray stayed active in both the civil rights and gender equality movements, as well as other social justice causes, throughout her life.
▪ Her scholarly work outlined the idea for Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case that overturned segregation in schools, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited Murray as inspiration when she used the 14th Amendment to argue against sex discrimination in Reed v. Reed.
▪ In 1966, Murray co-founded the National Organization for Women alongside Betty Friedan and others, though she later distanced herself from a leading role because she did not believe the organization “appropriately addressed the issues of Black and working-class women,” the Pauli Murray Center writes.
▪ In 1977, Murray became the first Black woman in the U.S. to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. Murray presided over her first holy Eucharist at Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill, where her enslaved grandmother attended church but was restricted to the balcony.
Murray died in 1985 at the age of 74.
Locally, Murrary’s legacy lives on in the Triangle at the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice, located at Murray’s childhood home in Durham, 906 Carroll St.
Last May, the Durham school board voted to name a new elementary school in the district after Murray.
A feature-length documentary about Murray, “My Name is Pauli Murray,” released in 2021 and is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
What will be on the Pauli Murray quarter?
The quarter designs for the 2024 American Women Quarters Program honorees will be released mid-2023, the Mint said in its announcement.
The Mint describes the program’s coins as “small works of art in your pocket.”
The obverse, or front, of the program’s coins feature a portrait of George Washington, though the design is different than typical quarters, with the late president facing right instead of left. The portrait was originally designed by Laura Gardin Fraser, whom the Mint describes as “one of the most prolific women sculptors of the early 20th century.”
The American Women Quarters Program will run through 2025, issuing five quarter designs each year. In addition to Murray, the following women are being honored with quarters in 2024:
▪ Patsy Takemoto Mink, the first woman of color to serve in Congress
▪ Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, a Civil War-era surgeon, women’s rights advocate and abolitionist
▪ Zitkala-Ša (“Red Bird”), or Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, an activist for Native American rights
▪ Celia Cruz, a Cuban-American singer and “one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century”
Previous honorees of the program include poet Maya Angelou, astronaut Sally Ride and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, among others.
Though the collectible quarters are issued into circulation as change, they are also available for purchase online at catalog.usmint.gov/coins/coin-programs/american-women-quarters-program.
