Quarter Dollar 2024 Reverend Dr. Pauli Murray, Coin from United States - detailed information

The Quarter Dollar is a United States coin worth 25 cents. From its inception until 1964, the denomination was issued in silver; it underwent several design changes, including finally the silver Washington quarter (1932 - 1964) featuring the first President of the United States on the obverse and the American Eagle on the reverse, issued then until 1998 in copper-nickel. The U.S Mint then embarked on several long term projects: the State Quarters series of 50 coins featuring each State from 1999 to 2008; in 2009, a six-coin series represented the District of Columbia and five US territories, and then the America the Beautiful program (2010 - 2021). After a brief interlude with a Washington commemorative quarter, the U.S. Mint started the American Women Quarters program in 2022.

Running until 2025, the program honours five women on five reverse designs per year, selected for "contributions to the United States in a wide spectrum of accomplishments and fields, including but not limited to suffrage, civil rights, abolition, government, humanities, science, space, and arts". The obverse depicts George Washington with a 1931 design by Laura Gardin Fraser.

The Reverend Dr. Pauli Murray Quarter Dollar is the eleventh release in the American Women Quarters Program.

Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray was a poet, writer, activist, lawyer, and Episcopal priest. She is regarded as one of the most important social justice advocates of the twentieth century. She fought tirelessly for civil rights, women’s rights, and gender equality.

Murray was born 20 November 1910, in Baltimore, Maryland and grew up in Durham, North Carolina. In 1938, Murray applied to the all-white University of North Carolina but was rejected. Her case received national publicity and she gained the friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt. Two years later, Murray and a friend were arrested for sitting in the whites-only section on a Virginia bus. This incident led to her decision to become a civil rights lawyer, and she enrolled in the Howard University law program. She graduated in the top of her class in 1944. She was then awarded a prestigious fellowship at Harvard University, but after the award was announced, Harvard Law School rejected her because of her gender.

Murray later earned a master’s in law at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1965, she became the first African American to receive a Doctor of Juridical Science degree from Yale Law School.

Murray’s 1950 book, States’ Laws on Race and Color was distributed to law libraries, universities, and human-rights organizations. It exposed the extent and absurdity of segregation and was important to the Supreme Court case Brown vs. Board of Education. In 1966, Murray joined Betty Friedan and others to found the National Organization for Women (NOW) but later relinquished a leading role, believing the issues of Black and working-class women were not adequately addressed by the organization.

She became the first Black woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1977. Murray died of cancer on July 1, 1985.

Reverend Dr. Pauli Murray Quarter Dollars issued in 2024 have now been in circulation for only one year.