Famed American author, poet and Civil Rights activist, Maya Angelou becomes the first Black woman to be featured on a quarter.
The quarter shows Angelou, author of “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” with her arms spread open and behind her are a bird in flight and a rising sun.
The quarters began shipping on Monday, according to the US Mint.
The Angelou quarter is the first in the series of the Mint’s American Women Quarters Program. George Washington’s face will still be on the opposite side of each quarter.
Additional honorees in 2022 will be physicist and first female astronaut Sally Ride, and Wilma Mankiller, the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. Also honored this year will be 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, according to NBC News.
“Each 2022 quarter is designed to reflect the breadth and depth of accomplishments being celebrated throughout this historic coin program,” Mint Deputy Director Ventris Gibson said. “Maya Angelou, featured on the reverse of this first coin in the series, used words to inspire and uplift.”
Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Senate sponsor of the bill to put the women on the coins supports the Mint’s decision to kick off the series with Angelou.
“This coin will ensure generations of Americans learn about Maya Angelou’s books and poetry that spoke to the lived experience of Black women,” she said in a statement.