2024-D Pauli Murray

The Denver issue of the Pauli Murray quarter posted a mintage of 185,800,000, slightly outpacing its Philadelphia counterpart and making this the higher production strike of the 2024 Murray release. Murray, born 1910 in Baltimore, made her name across multiple fields rarely combined in a single life. Refused admission to the University of North Carolina graduate program on racial grounds in 1938 and to Harvard Law on grounds of sex in 1944, she nevertheless produced "States' Laws on Race and Color" in 1951, a survey Thurgood Marshall reportedly called the bible of civil rights law. Her later legal scholarship at Yale, where she earned a J.S.D. in 1965, built the doctrinal bridge between racial equality jurisprudence and the sex-discrimination cases of the 1970s. Ordination as an Episcopal priest in 1977 added another first to a life full of them. She died in 1985, three decades before the United States Mint chose to honor her on coinage authorized by Public Law 116-330, signed January 13, 2021.

The reverse, credited to Artistic Infusion Program designer Robert Hoge with sculpting by Phebe Hemphill, places a contemplative portrait of Murray alongside a quotation referencing her life of public witness. Denver strikes carry a D mintmark on the obverse below the truncation of Washington's bust, following placement standard for the program. Composition is 91.67 percent copper and 8.33 percent nickel clad over a copper core, weight 5.67 grams, diameter 24.3 millimeters, reeded edge. Authenticity diagnostics for a Denver business strike focus on mintmark style and placement against the official Mint specimen, weight within tolerance, and uniform reeding count consistent with master die work.

Premium examples in MS67 and finer are readily available from both major grading services. Set builders should compare this Denver strike against Philadelphia coverage in the Washington Quarters (American Women) series history.