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[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3622 Introduced in House (IH)]
<DOC>
119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 3622
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 29, 2025
Mr. Beyer (for himself, Mr. Thompson of Mississippi, Mrs. Beatty, Ms.
Kelly of Illinois, Ms. Norton, and Mr. David Scott of Georgia)
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.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Joan Trumpauer Mulholland
Congressional Gold Medal Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Joan Trumpauer Mulholland was born on September 14,
1941, in Washington, DC, to Merle (Chandler) Nelson of Oconee,
Georgia, and Ealton ``Bud'' Nelson of Essex, Iowa, and went on
to directly challenge America's racial segregation practices in
the American South during the student-led nonviolent civil
rights movement of the early 1960s and became a lifelong
educator on the benefits of a multi-cultural, pluralistic
society.
(2) Her expressed Christian faith and understanding of
America's founding documents led the young Joan to believe,
that ``all men are created equal'' in the eyes of her Creator
as well as on the scales of Justice. As a 10 year old girl,
Joan's eyes were opened to the extreme inequality of the races
when, while visiting her grandmother in rural Georgia, she came
upon a dilapidated wooden shack that served as the schoolhouse
for the community's Black children and compared it to the newly
constructed block and brick school for the community's White
children. She vowed then that if she ever had a chance, she
would work to change this separate but unequal system.
(3) Joan graduated from Annandale High School in Northern
Virginia in the spring of 1959 and began attending Duke
University in Durham, North Carolina, that fall. On February 1,
1960, during her second semester at Duke, four young Black
college students entered Woolworth's five and dime store in
Greensboro, North Carolina, and challenged its segregated
dining policy by sitting in at the Whites-only lunch counter.
That event set off a nationwide reckoning over Southern
segregation practices. When students from North Carolina
College visited her church to speak on their experiences
challenging the established norms, they invited those present
to join the fight. Joan attended that presentation and decided
this was her chance to help change things and immediately began
sitting in with other like-minded students at downtown Durham's
five and dime stores, leading to her first arrest. She also
joined the newly formed Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) and committed herself to working for racial
equality through nonviolent means, eventually working alongside
such Movement luminaries as John Lewis, Julian Bond, Robert
Moses, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Dorie and Joyce Ladner.
(4) During the summer of 1960, Joan worked with a DC-
affiliate of SNCC, the Non-Violent Action Group, to protest
local segregation policies in the National Capitol Region,
integrating establishments in all 3 locales, including those in
her own community of Arlington, Virginia. In addition, Joan
joined the staff of Senator Clair Engel of California and
worked in his office on Capitol Hill until the Freedom Movement
once again called for her deeper involvement.
(5) In the spring of 1961, Joan joined the Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE) Freedom Rides, working to integrate
interstate travel facilities throughout the South. CORE sent
her by plane to New Orleans and then by train to Jackson,
Mississippi, where she was arrested and placed first in local
jails, where she kept a secret diary of her experiences--now
considered an important historical artifact of the Freedom
Rider era. After two weeks in local jails, Joan was sent to
Parchman Penitentiary where she, along with other committed
activists, was held on death row for challenging the
established policies of segregation. Joan was held in the
penitentiary for more than 60 days until she ``worked off'' her
court fine and was released.
(6) In the fall of 1961, Joan was accepted to the
Historically Black Tougaloo College on the outskirts of Jackson
to further her education as well as to continue challenging the
existing segregated order. She became the first full-time
matriculating White student in the history of the college,
garnering headlines in national newspapers and magazines for
what was then regarded as ``reverse integration''. Also, Joan,
along with other Freedom Riders who decided to remain in
Jackson, became part of the vanguard of the movement for civil
and voting rights in the State of Mississippi. She helped form
the Non-Violent Jackson Movement, which immediately began
challenging segregation on city buses and in public buildings,
including courtrooms. It became her mission to help the South
move on from its polarized and self-defeating system of racial
segregation and learn to build a more equitable social order.
(7) On April 6, 1963, Joan became a member of Delta Sigma
Theta Sorority, Inc., a Black Greek organization. She is
recognized as one of the first white members of the esteemed
Sorority.
(8) Joan also committed herself more deeply to the non-
violent philosophy of protest through her reading of works by
Henry David Thoreau and Mohandas Gandhi. Joan's commitment to
nonviolence was sorely tested during the May 28, 1963, Jackson
Woolworth's sit-in, which she joined after one of her
classmates was knocked from his stool and brutally kicked by a
violent bystander and then arrested by the police. Joan took
his place at the counter and for the next two-and-a-half hours
faced the ire of a gathering mob as they jeered and then
punched, pulled, and assaulted the demonstrators, dousing them
with ketchup and mustard, salt and sugar, and calling them all
manner of racist slurs as attempted to maintain their
``Southern Way of Life''. Joan and her colleagues held their
positions at the counter and their refusal to strike back at
those assaulting them won the hearts of many who saw the now-
iconic photograph of the Jackson sit-in and helped turn the
tide in the fight for equal treatment of all Americans.
(9) The Jackson Woolworth's sit-in triggered additional
massive nonviolent demonstrations for civil rights within the
city of Jackson in which more than 1,000 youth, including Joan,
were arrested for challenging segregation. For her role in the
Jackson Movement, Joan was targeted for death by the local Ku
Klux Klan, as were a number of her colleagues, including NAACP
leader Medgar Evers, who would, indeed, be assassinated two
weeks to the day after the Woolworth's sit in at his home in
Jackson. During the summer of 1963, Joan moved back to
Washington, DC, where she attended Evers's burial at Arlington
Cemetery.
(10) In all, Joan participated in more than three-dozen
direct action campaigns throughout the South during her college
years, including those in Rock Hill, South Carolina and
Baltimore, Maryland, before graduating from Tougaloo College in
the spring of 1964 and moving back to her native Virginia to
begin her adult life. She started her working career as a clerk
for the Smithsonian Institution before transferring to join the
newly forming Community Relations Service, ``America's
Peacemaker'', first housed in the Department of Commerce and
later with the Department of Justice. During this time, Joan
remained active in the civil rights field, participating in the
Selma to Montgomery March in 1965 and in the March Against Fear
in 1966.
(11) Joan eventually married and left public service to
start a family. Once her five boys were school-age, Joan
rejoined the workforce as a teacher's assistant in the
Arlington County Public Schools, where she became known for
encouraging a multi-cultural approach to learning, pulling from
her many world travels and her knowledge of sociology to help
immigrants appreciate their own cultures while helping them
integrate into the American way of life. After more than 30
years as an educator, Joan retired and embarked on a third
career as a civil rights ambassador, traveling the country
talking about her experiences and encouraging others to get
involved in public life to make a difference.
(12) For her service in the Civil Rights Movement and as an
ambassador of nonviolence, Joan has been awarded many honors,
including the Heroes Against Hate Award from the Anti-
Defamation League, the National Civil Rights Museum's Freedom
Award, the International Civil Rights Museum's Trailblazer
Award, the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority's Award of Honor, and the
Simeon Booker Award for Courage. In February of 2023, Joan was
honored by the Virginia General Assembly and was received on
the Floor of the Virginia State Senate ``for her inimitable
role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and her ongoing
commitment to educating others about equality and social
justice''. In May of 2023, she was awarded an honorary
Doctorate of Humane Letters by her alma mater, Tougaloo
College, for her service to humanity.
SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL.
(a) Presentation Authorization.--The Speaker of the House of
Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate shall make
appropriate arrangements for the presentation, on behalf of the
Congress, of a gold medal of appropriate design 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.
(b) Design and Striking.--For the purposes of the award referred to
in subsection (a), the Secretary of the Treasury (hereafter in this Act
referred to as the ``Secretary'') shall strike a gold medal with
suitable emblems, devices, and inscriptions, to be determined by the
Secretary.
(c) Disposition of Medal.--Following the presentation described in
subsection (a), the gold medal shall be given to Joan Trumpauer
Mulholland or, if unavailable, to her son, Loki Mulholland.
SEC. 4. DUPLICATE MEDALS.
The Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in bronze of the gold
medal struck pursuant to section 3, at a price sufficient to cover the
cost thereof, including labor, materials, dies, use of machinery, and
overhead expenses.
SEC. 5. STATUS OF MEDALS.
(a) National Medals.--The medals struck pursuant to this Act are
national medals for purposes of chapter 51 of title 31, United States
Code.
(b) Numismatic Items.--For purposes of sections 5134 and 5136 of
title 31, United States Code, all medals struck under this Act shall be
considered to be numismatic items.
SEC. 6. AUTHORITY TO USE FUND AMOUNTS; PROCEEDS OF SALE.
(a) Authority To Use Fund Amounts.--There is authorized to be
charged against the United States Mint Public Enterprise Fund such
amounts as may be necessary to pay for the cost of the medals struck
under this Act.
(b) Proceeds of Sale.--Amounts received from the sale of duplicate
bronze medals authorized under section 4 shall be deposited into the
United States Mint Public Enterprise Fund.
<all>
Introduced in House
Introduced in House
Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.
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