US Mint Announced has started shipping the first quarters with pioneer american women, beginning with the poet, writer, and activist Maya Angelou, the first black woman to appear in the neighborhood.
As part of the American Women Quarters Program, the Angelou coin is one of four expected to ship this year through 2025. The image of George Washington remains on one side, while the other will feature the women honored. The women to be featured include Wilma Mankiller, the Cherokee Nation’s first chief chieftain, Anna May Wong, Hollywood’s first Chinese-American movie star, Adelina Otero-Warren, a leader in the New Mexico suffrage movement, and Sally Ride. , astronaut and physics. who was the first American woman in space.
Angelou is depicted on the coin with her arms raised. Behind her is a bird and the rising sun, which are “inspired by her poetry and symbolize the way she lived.”
“I am honored to present our nation’s first circulating coins dedicated to celebrating American women and their contributions to American history,” Mint Deputy Director Ventris C. Gibson said in a press release. “Each quarter of 2022 is designed to reflect the breadth and depth of accomplishments celebrated throughout this historic coin program. Maya Angelou, who appears on the reverse of this first coin in the series, used words to inspire and encourage”.
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The momentum of the coin program started in 2017, with the support of US Representative Barbara Lee, D-Calif. Lee wrote the legislation with the help of Rosa Gumataotao Rios, a Treasury official who oversaw the US Mint under President Barack Obama.
Lee created the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act with two Republicans, US Representatives Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio and Deb Fischer of Nebraska. It became law in 2020 and the public was able to nominate potential honorees last year.
Angelou, who died at 86 in 2014He rose to national fame with his first 1969 memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” She was widely recognized as part of the Civil Rights Movement, working alongside other activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
The poet made history as the first black poet to write and read a poem at a presidential inauguration, when she read “On the Pulse of Morning” at President Bill Clinton’s first inauguration in 1993. She later received the Presidential Medal of Liberty, one of the highest civil awards in the US, in 2011 by then-President Barack Obama.
“As a leader in the civil rights movement, poet laureate, college professor, Broadway actress, dancer, and the first African-American cable car driver in San Francisco, Maya Angelou’s brilliance and artistry inspired generations of Americans,” he said. Read. you find yourself holding a Maya Angelou quarter, remember her words, ‘rest assured that you will not die without having done something wonderful for humanity.’
USA TODAY has reached out to the US Mint about how people can obtain the coins.
While Angelou is the first black woman to appear in the quarter, for years there has been a push to put more black women on the US currency. Abolitionist Harriet Tubman, who rescued some 70 enslaved people via the Underground Railroad, was proposed to replace Andrew Jackson, who owned enslaved people, on the $ 20 bill.
The movement began during the Obama administration, but was delayed by former President Donald Trump, who called the move “pure political correctness.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said shortly after President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2020 that the Treasury Department was looking for ways to “speed up the process.” according to The New York Times. But nevertheless, The Washington Post reported Tubman may not be on a bill before the end of his term, or a possible second term.
Contributions: Gabriela Miranda, Jeanine Santucci
Follow Jordan Mendoza on Twitter: @ jordan_mendoza5.
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