By Megan Hadley
The Mint announced last year that several notable women would be featured in the quarter program, including Angelou, Chinese American film star Anna May Wong and former astronaut Sally Ride. Image courtesy U.S. Mint
Jan. 11 (UPI) -- The U.S. Mint says it has begun shipping a new quarter that features poet Maya Angelou, which is the first U.S. coin ever to honor a Black woman.
Angelou's quarter is part of the America Women Quarters Program, which will feature a number of historical figures.
The Mint says that coins featuring other prominent American women will also begin shipping later this year and continue through 2025.
"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," Mint Deputy Director Ventris Gibson said in a statement Monday.
Angelou, who died in 2014 at the age of 86, was an author and social activist. Her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, was nominated for the National Book Award.
In her lifetime, Angelou received more than 20 honorary degrees from institutions such as Boston College and Tufts University, and was granted the first lifetime Reynolds Professorship of American Studies at Wake Forest University in 1982.
The Mint announced last year that it would include several notable figures in the quarter program, including Chinese American film star Anna May Wong, former astronaut Sally Ride and Wilma Mankiller, the first woman to be elected principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.
The program was established by the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020, and requires that five prominent American women be recognized on quarters between 2022 and 2025.
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