Maya Angelou: first Black woman on US coin

History is made on US quarter - 31st January 2022

Poet and literary giant Maya Angelou has been minted on the new US quarter. The act of honouring Angelou in this way also makes history. Angelou becomes the first Black woman to be struck on the coin.

Angelou rose to fame with her groundbreaking autobiography ‘I know why the caged bird sings’ in 1969, about her childhood in the Deep South. She passed away in 2014, aged 89, with over 30 bestselling works to her name and dozens of honorary degrees. The first black woman to write and perform a poem at a presidential inauguration, for Bill Clinton in 1993, she also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010. This, the highest civilian award in the US, was bestowed on her by President Barack Obama.

Angelou is pictured on the new quarter with open and outstretched arms. Behind her, a bird flies high above a rising sun. The scene was “inspired by her poetry and symbolic of the way she lived,” the US Treasury Department said. The front of the quarter shows the traditional bust of George Washington, the first president of the United States.

The US Mint plans to issue more quarters for pioneering American women over the next four years. These include Sally Ride, the first US woman astronaut; Wilma Mankiller, the first woman tribal chief of the Cherokee Nation and a campaigner for indigenous rights; and Anna May Wong, who is considered the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood.

Although women are seldom found on US currency, the appointment of Janet Yellen as the country’s first woman US Treasury Secretary is heralding change. She said in a statement, "Each time we redesign our currency, we have the chance to say something about our country – what we value, and how we've progressed as a society."

Meanwhile, plans have been revived for escaped slave and abolitionist Harriet Tubman to appear on the 20 dollar bill, something President Trump had blocked while he was in office.