Born in 1923, Joyce Phillips Austin graduated from Hunter College and Fordham Law School. She worked as an attorney in the New York City Office of Price Stabilization for two years before entering private practice in 1954 with her father, Fitzgerald Phillips, a former Parole Commissioner. That same year, she worked on a New York City Council bill banning discriminatory organizations from marching on the city streets.

In June of 1956, Austin began her career in public service as the Executive Secretary of the New York Women’s Council, which served the State Commerce Department in an advisory capacity. The following year she was appointed the Assistant Deputy Commissioner of the State Commerce Department, the first African American to serve there in a “key post,” according to the New York Amsterdam News of October 19, 1957. In 1959, she became the assistant to Robert Wagner, mayor of New York, and shortly thereafter served as the chair of a New York state program to support President Kennedy’s policy program in Congress. Along with Daniel Patrick Moynihan, she was a member of the Public Affairs Committee of the New York Democratic organization and served on the Democratic National Convention’s Committee on Credentials.

In 1968, Austin was appointed the Assistant Director of the Sheltering Arms Children’s Service, where she worked for six years developing programs and administering operations. In 1974, she became the Executive Vice President of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, which coordinated 350 welfare agencies throughout New York City and New England. In recognition for her service to the people of New York City, she was awarded the John H. Finley Medal in 1978.

Though she was a faithful and active member of St. Philip’s Church in Harlem for decades, Joyce Austin became the first women elected to the vestry of Trinity Church Wall Street, where she was instrumental in urging the parish to divest from companies that supported Apartheid in South Africa. She served as deputy to General Convention, a member of the Diocese of New York’s Venture Fund, a member of the Diocesan Council, and a member of the church’s Executive Council. She was also a Trustee of the General Theological Seminary, which awarded her a D.D. honoris causa in 2004.