I 

118TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. R. 8521 

To award a Congressional Gold Medal to Joan Trumpauer Mulholland in 

recognition of her unique and substantial contributions to American 

life through her life-long commitment to social justice and equality for 

all citizens, exhibited both through direct action, at great personal risk, 

and through ongoing educational activities. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MAY 23, 2024 

Mr. BEYER (for himself, Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi, Mr. ESPAILLAT, Ms. 

WILLIAMS of Georgia, Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN, Ms. CLARKE of New 

York, Mrs. FOUSHEE, Ms. WEXTON, Mr. BISHOP of Georgia, Mrs. 

BEATTY, Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia, Ms. NORTON, Mr. CONNOLLY, Mr. 

HORSFORD, Mr. DAVID SCOTT of Georgia, Mr. MEEKS, Mr. CLYBURN, 

and Mr. SCOTT of Virginia) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Financial Services 

A BILL 

To award a Congressional Gold Medal to Joan Trumpauer 

Mulholland in recognition of her unique and substantial 

contributions to American life through her life-long commitment to social justice and equality for all citizens, 

exhibited both through direct action, at great personal 

risk, and through ongoing educational activities. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 


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1 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

2 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Joan Trumpauer 

3 Mulholland Congressional Gold Medal Act’’. 

4 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

5 Congress finds the following: 

6 (1) Joan Trumpauer Mulholland was born on 

7 September 14, 1941, in Washington, DC, to Merle 

8 (Chandler) Nelson of Oconee, Georgia, and Ealton 

9 ‘‘Bud’’ Nelson of Essex, Iowa, and went on to di10 rectly challenge America’s racial segregation prac11 tices in the American South during the student-led 

12 nonviolent civil rights movement of the early 1960s 

13 and became a lifelong educator on the benefits of a 

14 multi-cultural, pluralistic society. 

15 (2) Her expressed Christian faith and under16 standing of America’s founding documents led the 

17 young Joan to believe, that ‘‘all men are created 

18 equal’’ in the eyes of her Creator as well as on the 

19 scales of Justice. As a 10 year old girl, Joan’s eyes 

20 were opened to the extreme inequality of the races 

21 when, while visiting her grandmother in rural Geor22 gia, she came upon a dilapidated wooden shack that 

23 served as the schoolhouse for the community’s Black 

24 children and compared it to the newly constructed 

25 block and brick school for the community’s White 

26 children. She vowed then that if she ever had a 


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1 chance, she would work to change this separate but 

2 unequal system. 

3 (3) Joan graduated from Annandale High 

4 School in Northern Virginia in the spring of 1959 

5 and began attending Duke University in Durham, 

6 North Carolina, that fall. On February 1, 1960, dur7 ing her second semester at Duke, four young Black 

8 college students entered Woolworth’s five and dime 

9 store in Greensboro, North Carolina, and challenged 

10 its segregated dining policy by sitting in at the 

11 Whites-only lunch counter. That event set off a na12 tionwide reckoning over Southern segregation prac13 tices. When students from North Carolina College 

14 visited her church to speak on their experiences chal15 lenging the established norms, they invited those 

16 present to join the fight. Joan attended that presen17 tation and decided this was her chance to help 

18 change things and immediately began sitting in with 

19 other like-minded students at downtown Durham’s 

20 five and dime stores, leading to her first arrest. She 

21 also joined the newly formed Student Non-Violent 

22 Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and committed 

23 herself to working for racial equality through non24 violent means, eventually working alongside such 

25 Movement luminaries as John Lewis, Julian Bond, 


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1 Robert Moses, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Dorie and 

2 Joyce Ladner. 

3 (4) During the summer of 1960, Joan worked 

4 with a DC-affiliate of SNCC, the Non-Violent Action 

5 Group, to protest local segregation policies in the 

6 National Capitol Region, integrating establishments 

7 in all 3 locales, including those in her own commu8 nity of Arlington, Virginia. In addition, Joan joined 

9 the staff of Senator Clair Engel of California and 

10 worked in his office on Capitol Hill until the Free11 dom Movement once again called for her deeper in12 volvement. 

13 (5) In the spring of 1961, Joan joined the Con14 gress of Racial Equality (CORE) Freedom Rides, 

15 working to integrate interstate travel facilities 

16 throughout the South. CORE sent her by plane to 

17 New Orleans and then by train to Jackson, Mis18 sissippi, where she was arrested and placed first in 

19 local jails, where she kept a secret diary of her expe20 riences—now considered an important historical ar21 tifact of the Freedom Rider era. After two weeks in 

22 local jails, Joan was sent to Parchman Penitentiary 

23 where she, along with other committed activists, was 

24 held on death row for challenging the established 

25 policies of segregation. Joan was held in the penitenVerDate Sep 11 2014 00:57 Jul 10, 2024 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H8521.IH H8521

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1 tiary for more than 60 days until she ‘‘worked off’’ 

2 her court fine and was released. 

3 (6) In the fall of 1961, Joan was accepted to 

4 the Historically Black Tougaloo College on the out5 skirts of Jackson to further her education as well as 

6 to continue challenging the existing segregated 

7 order. She became the first full-time matriculating 

8 White student in the history of the college, gar9 nering headlines in national newspapers and maga10 zines for what was then regarded as ‘‘reverse inte11 gration’’. Also, Joan, along with other Freedom Rid12 ers who decided to remain in Jackson, became part 

13 of the vanguard of the movement for civil and voting 

14 rights in the state of Mississippi. She helped form 

15 the Non-Violent Jackson Movement, which imme16 diately began challenging segregation on city buses 

17 and in public buildings, including courtrooms. It be18 came her mission to help the South move on from 

19 its polarized and self-defeating system of racial seg20 regation and learn to build a more equitable social 

21 order. 

22 (7) On April 6, 1963, Joan became a member 

23 of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a Black Greek 

24 organization. She is recognized as one of the first 

25 white members of the esteemed Sorority. 


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1 (8) Joan also committed herself more deeply to 

2 the non-violent philosophy of protest through her 

3 reading of works by Henry David Thoreau and 

4 Mohandas Gandhi. Joan’s commitment to non5 violence was sorely tested during the May 28, 1963, 

6 Jackson Woolworth’s sit-in, which she joined after 

7 one of her classmates was knocked from his stool 

8 and brutally kicked by a violent bystander and then 

9 arrested by the police. Joan took his place at the 

10 counter and for the next two-and-a-half hours faced 

11 the ire of a gathering mob as they jeered and then 

12 punched, pulled, and assaulted the demonstrators, 

13 dousing them with ketchup and mustard, salt and 

14 sugar, and calling them all manner of racist slurs as 

15 attempted to maintain their ‘‘Southern Way of 

16 Life’’. Joan and her colleagues held their positions 

17 at the counter and their refusal to strike back at 

18 those assaulting them won the hearts of many who 

19 saw the now-iconic photograph of the Jackson sit-in 

20 and helped turn the tide in the fight for equal treat21 ment of all Americans. 

22 (9) The Jackson Woolworth’s sit-in triggered 

23 additional massive nonviolent demonstrations for 

24 civil rights within the city of Jackson in which more 

25 than 1,000 youth, including Joan, were arrested for 


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1 challenging segregation. For her role in the Jackson 

2 Movement, Joan was targeted for death by the local 

3 Ku Klux Klan, as were a number of her colleagues, 

4 including NAACP leader Medgar Evers, who would, 

5 indeed, be assassinated two weeks to the day after 

6 the Woolworth’s sit in at his home in Jackson. Dur7 ing the summer of 1963, Joan moved back to Wash8 ington, DC, where she attended Evers’s burial at Ar9 lington Cemetery. 

10 (10) In all, Joan participated in more than 

11 three-dozen direct action campaigns throughout the 

12 South during her college years, including those in 

13 Rock Hill, South Carolina and Baltimore, Maryland, 

14 before graduating from Tougaloo College in the 

15 spring of 1964 and moving back to her native Vir16 ginia to begin her adult life. She started her working 

17 career as a clerk for the Smithsonian Institution be18 fore transferring to join the newly forming Commu19 nity Relations Service, ‘‘America’s Peacemaker’’, 

20 first housed in the Department of Commerce and 

21 later with the Department of Justice. During this 

22 time, Joan remained active in the civil rights field, 

23 participating in the Selma to Montgomery March in 

24 1965 and in the March Against Fear in 1966. 


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1 (11) Joan eventually married and left public 

2 service to start a family. Once her five boys were 

3 school-age, Joan rejoined the workforce as a teach4 er’s assistant in the Arlington County Public 

5 Schools, where she became known for encouraging a 

6 multi-cultural approach to learning, pulling from her 

7 many world travels and her knowledge of sociology 

8 to help immigrants appreciate their own cultures 

9 while helping them integrate into the American way 

10 of life. After more than 30 years as an educator, 

11 Joan retired and embarked on a third career as a 

12 civil rights ambassador, traveling the country talking 

13 about her experiences and encouraging others to get 

14 involved in public life to make a difference. 

15 (12) For her service in the Civil Rights Move16 ment and as an ambassador of nonviolence, Joan 

17 has been awarded many honors, including the He18 roes Against Hate Award from the Anti-Defamation 

19 League, the National Civil Rights Museum’s Free20 dom Award, the International Civil Rights Museum’s 

21 Trailblazer Award, the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority’s 

22 Award of Honor, and the Simeon Booker Award for 

23 Courage. In February of 2023, Joan was honored by 

24 the Virginia General Assembly and was received on 

25 the Floor of the Virginia State Senate ‘‘for her inimVerDate Sep 11 2014 00:57 Jul 10, 2024 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H8521.IH H8521

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1 itable role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s 

2 and her ongoing commitment to educating others 

3 about equality and social justice’’. In May of 2023, 

4 she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane 

5 Letters by her alma mater, Tougaloo College, for her 

6 service to humanity. 

7 SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL. 

8 (a) PRESENTATION AUTHORIZATION.—The Speaker 

9 of the House of Representatives and the President pro 

10 tempore of the Senate shall make appropriate arrange11 ments for the presentation, on behalf of the congress, of 

12 a gold medal of appropriate design to Joan Trumpauer 

13 Mulholland in recognition of her unique and substantial 

14 contributions to American life through her life-long com15 mitment to social justice and equality for all citizens, ex16 hibited both through direct action, at great personal risk, 

17 and through ongoing educational activities. 

18 (b) DESIGN AND STRIKING.—For the purposes of the 

19 award referred to in subsection (a), the Secretary of the 

20 Treasury (hereafter in this Act referred to as the ‘‘Sec21 retary’’) shall strike a gold medal with suitable emblems, 

22 devices, and inscriptions, to be determined by the Sec23 retary. 


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1 SEC. 4. DUPLICATE MEDALS. 

2 The Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in 

3 bronze of the gold medal struck pursuant to section 3, at 

4 a price sufficient to cover the cost thereof, including labor, 

5 materials, dies, use of machinery, and overhead expenses. 

6 SEC. 5. STATUS OF MEDALS. 

7 (a) NATIONAL MEDALS.—The medals struck pursu8 ant to this Act are national medals for purposes of chapter 

9 51 of title 31, United States Code. 

10 (b) NUMISMATIC ITEMS.—For purposes of sections 

11 5134 and 5136 of title 31, United States Code, all medals 

12 struck under this Act shall be considered to be numismatic 

13 items. 

14 SEC. 6. AUTHORITY TO USE FUND AMOUNTS; PROCEEDS OF 

15 SALE. 

16 (a) AUTHORITY TO USE FUND AMOUNTS.—There is 

17 authorized to be charged against the United States Mint 

18 Public Enterprise Fund such amounts as may be nec19 essary to pay for the cost of the medals struck under this 

20 Act. 

21 (b) PROCEEDS OF SALE.—Amounts received from the 

22 sale of duplicate bronze medals authorized under section 

23 4 shall be deposited into the United States Mint Public 

24 Enterprise Fund. 

Æ 


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