Maya Angelou, acclaimed poet and activist has the honor of becoming the first African American woman to be on the quarter. Historically, the quarter has the first American President George Washington on one side and an eagle on the other side. In a statement by the US Mint, this is the first quarter to be released in the American Quarters Programme.
She was born in 1928 in Missouri and worked with several prominent civil rights activists like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Angelou became a household name after the release of her autobiography ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ in 1969. In 1993, she read her poem ‘On the Pulse of Morning’ for Bill Clinton’s presidential inauguration, making her the first African American woman to do so. In 2010, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Former President Barack Obama.
The coin is the first in the line of new quarters that will be released by the US treasury over the next 4 years. The plan is to call attention to the influential women in the United States.
According to the statement released by the agency, the women will be from a variety of backgrounds from various fields spanning from the arts, civil rights and suffrage. “Every time we redesign the currency- we have the chance to say something about our country, what we value and how we progress as a society. I’m very proud that these coins celebrate the contributions of some of America’s most remarkable women, including Maya Angelou” said Janet Yellen, the US Treasury Secretary.
This move comes after a decade-long push to feature more diverse Americans on the currency. Those who have been featured have mostly been white men including slave owners. Among the next to be honored are the first American woman to go to space Dr. Sally Ride, Wilma Mankiller the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, Nina Otero-Warren, a leader in New Mexico’s suffrage movement and the first female superintendent of Santa Fe public schools, and Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood.
The Obama Administration had proposed a plan to replace the slave-owning 7th President of the US Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill with Harriet Tubman. Tubman was a leader in the Underground Railway and an abolitionist that helped slaves esacping the south. The plan stalled under the Trump administration but the Biden Administration said that it has plans to renew this initiative.
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