US Mint begins shipping quarters honoring Angelou
U.S Mint announced it has begun shipping out the first quarters featuring trailblazing American women, beginning with poet, writer and activist Maya Angelou, the first Black woman to appear on the quarter.
Part of the American Women Quarters Program, the Angelou coin is one of four expected to be shipped this year through 2025.
George Washington’s likeness remain on one side, while the other will have the honored women.
The women that will be featured include Wilma Mankiller, the Cherokee Nation’s first female principal chief, Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American Hollywood film star, Adelina Otero-warren, a leader in New Mexico’s suffrage movement and Sally Ride, an astronaut and physicist who was the first American woman in space.
Angelou is depicted on the coin with her arms uplifted. Behind her are a bird and the rising sun, which are “inspired by her poetry and symbolic of the way she lived.”
“It is my honor 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 news release. “Each 2022 quarter is designed to reflect the breadth and depth of accomplishments being celebrated throughout this historic coin program. Maya Angelou, featured on the reverse of this first coin in the series, used words to inspire and uplift.”
The push for the coin program started in 2017, with the support of U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-calif. Lee drafted legislation with help from Rosa Gumataotao Rios, a Treasury official who oversaw the U.S. Mint under President Barack Obama.
Angelou, who died at 86 in 2014, rose to national prominence with her 1969 debut memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” She was widely recognized as part of the Civil Rights Movemen.
The poet made history as the first Black poet to write and read a poem at a presidential inauguration.
Contributing: Gabriela Miranda, Jeanine Santucci