I 
118TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2831 
To award posthumously a Congressional Gold Medal to Robert Parris Moses, 
in recognition of his achievements and contributions to advancing Amer-
ican education and civil rights. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
APRIL 25, 2023 
Mr. ESPAILLAT (for himself and Mr. RASKIN) introduced the following bill; 
which was referred to the Committee on Financial Services 
A BILL 
To award posthumously a Congressional Gold Medal to Rob-
ert Parris Moses, in recognition of his achievements and 
contributions to advancing American education and civil 
rights. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Robert Parris Moses 
Congressional Gold Medal Act’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
The Congress finds that: 
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(1) Robert Parris Moses was born in Harlem, 
New York City, on January 23, 1935. 
(2) Robert Parris Moses is regarded as an in-
fluential civil rights activist, peace activist, public 
education advocate, and math literacy educator. 
(3) Moses grew up in Harlem River Houses and 
was one of only a handful of Black students at the 
time who was admitted to Stuyvesant High School. 
(4) Moses earned a scholarship to Hamilton 
College in Clinton, New York, and subsequently ob-
tained a master’s degree in philosophy from Harvard 
University in 1957. 
(5) His doctorate studies in mathematics were 
halted due to the death of his mother and the hos-
pitalization of his father. 
(6) In 1959, Moses helped with the second 
Youth March for Integrated Schools in Washington, 
DC. 
(7) Moses visited Mississippi in the summer of 
1960, and met with local National Association for 
the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) lead-
ers who indicated the need to focus on voter reg-
istration. He returned to Mississippi after teaching 
the 1960–1961 school year in New York, where he 
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organized and registered thousands of poor, illit-
erate, and rural Black residents to vote. 
(8) As a leader of the Student Nonviolent Co-
ordinating Committee, in 1964, Moses helped orga-
nize the Mississippi ‘‘Freedom’’ Summer Project. 
(9) Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called Moses’ 
‘‘contribution to the freedom struggle in America’’ 
an ‘‘inspiration’’. 
(10) After Moses married Janet, they started a 
family in Tanzania. He spent nearly a decade there 
teaching mathematics and working with the Ministry 
of Education. 
(11) Moses returned to the United States in 
1976, and continued his doctoral studies in Philos-
ophy of Mathematics at Harvard. He received a 
MacArthur Fellowship in 1982, which he used to 
promote the Algebra Project. 
(12) In founding the Algebra Project, Moses 
stated that K–12 math literacy, like voting literacy, 
is key to full citizenship for Americans from poor 
and minority communities as our society shifts from 
the Industrial Age to the Information Age. 
(13) The Algebra Project is a non-profit dedi-
cated 
to 
helping 
students 
from 
historically 
marginalized communities, including Black, Brown, 
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and youth living in poverty, who often hail from low- 
income households. Students develop math literacy 
skills, which Bob Moses viewed as the path to per-
manently improving their life circumstances, as well 
as the social and economic conditions of their com-
munities. 
(14) The Algebra Project uses mathematics lit-
eracy as an organizing tool to guarantee quality pub-
lic-school education for all children in the United 
States. 
(15) The Algebra Project is one of the few 
mathematics education initiatives to originate in the 
African-American community. 
(16) Since its inception in 1982, the Algebra 
Project has helped more than 40,000 students in 
hundreds of schools nationwide. 
(17) In 1996, the Young People’s Project was 
launched by Algebra Project graduates from Cam-
bridge, MA, and Algebra Project middle school stu-
dents from Jackson, Mississippi. The Young Peo-
ple’s Project recruits and trains high school and col-
lege age ‘‘Math Literacy Workers’’ to facilitate en-
richment workshops for younger students in mathe-
matics. 
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(18) For his work, Bob Moses has been hon-
ored, including with an Honorary Doctor of Science 
from Harvard University and Ohio State University, 
an Honorary Doctor of Laws from Princeton Uni-
versity, the John Dewey Prize for Progressive Edu-
cation, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Na-
tional Council of the Teachers of Mathematics, and 
was inducted to the American Academy of Arts and 
Sciences. 
(19) Moses wrote about his vision for education 
and experiences. He was co-author of Radical Equa-
tions—Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra 
Project (2001), and co-editor of Quality Education 
as a Constitutional Right—Creating a Grassroots 
Movement to Transform America’s Schools (2010). 
(20) Moses wrote in Radical Equations that 
‘‘the most urgent social issue affecting poor people 
and people of color, is economic access. In today’s 
world, economic access and full citizenship depend 
crucially on math and science literacy. I believe that 
the absence of math literacy in urban and rural com-
munities throughout this country is an issue as ur-
gent as the lack of registered Black voters in Mis-
sissippi was in 1961.’’. 
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