Maya Angelou First Black Woman to be Featured on a U.S. Quarter
The U.S. quarter is getting a rebrand and a new face. Legendary poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou is said to be the first black women to be featured on a US quarter. According to NPR news, Maya Angelou is the first woman to be honored as part of the American Women Quarters Program, a four-year program that will include coins for other notable women in U.S. history. The other quarters for the series will be released later on in 2022 and run untill the year 2025. Some of the other women who will be honored are astronaut Sally Ride, actress Anna May Wong, suffragist and politician Nina Otero-Warren, and Wilma Mankiller, the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.
(Photo by Dudley M. Brooks / The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Angelou, who is best known for her famous pomes like, And Still I Rise, Phenomenal Women and Women Work, passed away in May of 2014 at the age of 86. In addition to receiving a Presidential Medal of Freedom from former President Barack Obama, Angelou also won the Literary Award (an honorary National Book Award). In 1992, Angelou wrote and delivered a poem at a presidential inauguration, becoming the fist Black woman in history to do so and the second poet ever to present a poem at the inauguration. Additionally, she held more than 30 honorary degrees and published more than 30 bestselling books. Mint Deputy Director Ventris C. Gibson released a statement saying, “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.” Below is a link and first look at the new Maya Angelou quarter. Detroit what do you think?
