NYC Gazette

The NOW Co-Founder and Hunter College Graduate Joins U.S. Mint’s American Women Quarters Program

On International Women’s Day, CUNY Honors Murray and All Women Who Strengthen Our University and World Every Day With Activism, Discovery, Art and So Much More

Reverend Dr. Pauli Murray, a 1933 Hunter College graduate who is considered one of the most important social justice advocates of the 20th century, will be a 2024 honoree for the American Women Quarters Program, the U.S. Mint announced. Murray was a lawyer, activist, poet and the first Black woman ordained as an Episcopal priest. A co-founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW), Murray’s writing inspired both Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg as they prepared landmark Supreme Court decisions arguing against segregation and sex-based discrimination. 

“On International Women’s Day, a day dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments of women and fighting against gender discrimination, we are delighted that Pauli Murray will be recognized in such an indelible way for being an unrelenting advocate and showing the foresight to anticipate some of the most significant issues of our time,” said CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez. “I would also like to take this moment to celebrate the many women of CUNY who, throughout our 175-year history, have fought for social justice, made groundbreaking scientific advancements, wrote influential works across many fields and served the public as elected leaders.”

“All of the women being honored have lived remarkable and multi-faceted lives, and have made a significant impact on our nation in their own unique way,” said Mint Director Ventris C. Gibson in a statement. “The women pioneered change during their lifetimes, not yielding to the status quo imparted during their lives. By honoring these pioneering women, the Mint continues to connect America through coins, which are like small works of art in your pocket.”

The other 2024 honorees for the American Women Quarters Program are Civil-War-era surgeon Mary Edwards Walker, U.S. Congressperson Patsy Takemoto Mink, Native American activist and author Zitkala-Ša and Cuban-American singer Celia Cruz. Cruz will be the first Afro-Latina to appear on a U.S. quarter. The U.S. Mint will announce the 2024 American Women Quarters designs, as well as the sequence of their release into circulation in 2024, at a later date.

CUNY’s Current Luminaries

The University proudly acknowledges its female alumni and faculty who are acting as catalysts for change in many arenas of our ever-evolving world. Here are just a few of these luminaries:

Professors Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Miranda Fricker, both of CUNY’s Graduate Center, were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the country’s most prestigious honorary societies. Gilmore was recognized for her eminence as a scholar and activist in challenging racism and other deeply rooted political and social injustices. Fricker is one of the world’s foremost authorities in social epistemology, ethics and feminist and political philosophy. 

Two CUNY professors, Kimiko Hahn of Queens College and Patricia Smith of the College of Staten Island, were recently elected to the 15-member board of chancellors of the Academy of American Poets, the nation’s leading champion of poets and poetry.

New York State Attorney General Letitia “Tish” James (Lehman, 1982) is the first woman of color to hold statewide office in New York and the first woman to be elected Attorney General. She also served as Public Advocate for New York City, and was the first woman of color to hold citywide office.

CUNY distinguished professor emerita Tania León is a composer, conductor and educator who taught at Brooklyn College for more than 25 years. In 2021 she won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Music and last year became the first CUNY-affiliated faculty to receive a Kennedy Center Honor, one of the nation’s most prestigious awards for lifetime achievement in the performing arts. 

Marilyn Zayas (City College, 1987) is currently the first and only Latino person elected to a court of appeals in Ohio, and has sat in on cases on Ohio’s Second, Sixth, Eighth and Tenth District Courts of Appeals, as well as the Ohio State Supreme Court, where she is currently campaigning for a seat. 

CUNY’s Female Icons Throughout History

In 1869, the New York City Board of Education created the Female Normal and High School to train young women of all races, religions and backgrounds to become teachers. Later renamed Hunter College, the school was the first in the city to offer free public higher education for girls. Since then, CUNY and its 25 colleges have been incubators for some of New York’s most celebrated women trailblazers. Below are few examples of alumni and faculty who broke barriers that helped transform perspectives about women’s roles in society:

Bella Abzug (Hunter College, 1942) was president of the student council during her time at Hunter, and went on to serve three terms as a New York Congressperson, where she was known for her feminist insight and also for being one of the first members of Congress to support gay rights. She established the Women USA Fund and the Women’s Environment and Development Organization, two advocacy groups that worked to promote women’s issues on the United Nations’ agenda, and chaired the New York City Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women during the Dinkins administration.

Shirley Chisholm (Brooklyn College, 1946) was the first Black woman elected to Congress in 1968. Four years later, she declared her candidacy for the presidency, making her the first African-American from either major political party to mount a campaign for the White House. She also held leadership roles in the League of Women Voters, the National Association for the Advancement for Colored People (NAACP) and the Democratic Party Club in Brooklyn.

Mildred Dresselhaus (Hunter College High School, 1947; Hunter College, 1951) was a Professor Emerita of Physics and Electrical Engineering at MIT and recipient of the Obama Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1968, she became the first woman to attain full tenured rank at MIT, and would go on to passionately advocate for the advancement of women in STEM fields. 

Ruby Dee (Hunter College, 1945) was an award-winning actress who appeared in more than 50 films, including “A Raisin in the Sun,” “Do the Right Thing” and “American Gangster,” for which she received an Oscar nomination. She was also an iconic civil rights and social justice activist, and won a 2005 lifetime achievement award from the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. She and her husband, the writer, actor, producer and director Ossie Davis, were lifelong collaborators and shared accolades like the Kennedy Center Honors and the Screen Actors’ Guild Lifetime Achievement Award.

Betty Lee Sung (Queens College, 1968) was an activist and scholar known for challenging the stereotypes that affected Asian American and immigrant communities. She founded the Asian-American studies program at City College, the first offering of its kind in the eastern United States, and taught there for 22 years before retiring as the program’s chairperson. Her research focused on issues such as bigotry and employment rights that often affect Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans.

Audre Lorde (Hunter College High School, 1951; Hunter College, 1959) was a New York State Poet Laureate, impactful prose writer and passionate activist. A self-described “Black, lesbian, feminist, mother, warrior, poet,” Lorde, who is considered one of the 20th century’s most influential writers, lectured throughout the United States, Europe, and Africa, and was also a Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College.  

Antonia Pantoja (Hunter College, 1952) was an advocate and scholar who founded important organizations such as the nonprofit ASPIRA, which focuses on the empowerment of Puerto Rican and Latinx youth in New York City and won a landmark 1974 lawsuit that helped bring bilingual education to city public schools. She also helped establish the current Boricua College in New York City and the Puerto Rican Research and Resource Center in Washington, D.C. In 1996, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton for her work providing economic and educational advancement to Puerto Ricans. The Pantoja Centennial is being celebrated this year. 

Myriam Sarachik was a trailblazing physicist who taught at City College for more than 50 years. She is known for her pioneering work on the physics of electronic transport in solids and molecular magnetism, and won many awards throughout her life, including the 2020 Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research from the American Physical Society. The Myriam Sarachik Professorship Fund for a visiting physics professor in CCNY’s Division of Science was established by a $1.5 million dollar gift she made to the college before her passing.

The City University of New York is the nation’s largest urban public university, a transformative engine of social mobility that is a critical component of the lifeblood of New York City. Founded in 1847 as the nation’s first free public institution of higher education, CUNY today has seven community colleges, 11 senior colleges and seven graduate or professional institutions spread across New York City’s five boroughs, serving over 243,000 undergraduate and graduate students and awarding 55,000 degrees each year. CUNY’s mix of quality and affordability propels almost six times as many low-income students into the middle class and beyond as all the Ivy League colleges combined. More than 80 percent of the University’s graduates stay in New York, contributing to all aspects of the city’s economic, civic and cultural life and diversifying the city’s workforce in every sector. CUNY’s graduates and faculty have received many prestigious honors, including 13 Nobel Prizes and 26 MacArthur “Genius” Grants. The University’s historic mission continues to this day: provide a first-rate public education to all students, regardless of means or background.

Original source can be found here.