FILE - In this Nov. 21, 2008, record photo, writer Maya Angelou smiles astatine an lawsuit successful Washington. On Monday, Jan. 10, 2022, the United States Mint said it has begun shipping quarters featuring the representation of writer Maya Angelou, the archetypal coins successful its American Women Quarters Program. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File) (Gerald Herbert, Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistribu)

WASHINGTON – The United States Mint said Monday it has begun shipping quarters featuring the representation of writer Maya Angelou, the archetypal coins successful its American Women Quarters Program.

Angelou, an American author, writer and Civil Rights activist, roseate to prominence with the work of “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” successful 1969. Angelou, who died successful 2014 astatine the property of 86, was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom successful 2010 by President Barack Obama.

The 4th plan depicts Angelou with outstretched arms. Behind her are a vertebrate successful formation and a rising sun, images inspired by her poetry.

The mint's programme volition contented 20 quarters implicit the adjacent 4 years honoring women and their achievements successful shaping the nation's history.

Additional honorees successful 2022 volition beryllium physicist and archetypal pistillate astronaut Sally Ride, and Wilma Mankiller, the archetypal pistillate main main of the Cherokee Nation. Also honored this twelvemonth volition beryllium Nina Otero-Warren, a person successful New Mexico's suffrage question and the archetypal pistillate superintendent of Santa Fe nationalist schools, and Anna May Wong, the archetypal Chinese American movie prima successful Hollywood.

Ad

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nevada, the Senate sponsor of authorities directing the mint to contented the quarters honoring women, applauded the Mint's enactment of Angelou for the archetypal coin.

“This coin volition guarantee generations of Americans larn astir Maya Angelou's books and poesy that spoke to the lived acquisition of Black women,” she said successful a statement.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the nation's archetypal pistillate Treasury secretary, said: “Each clip we redesign our currency, we person the accidental to accidental thing astir our country. ... I'm precise arrogant that these coins observe the contributions of immoderate of America's astir singular women, including Maya Angelou.”

The Biden medication announced soon aft taking bureau a twelvemonth agone that it planned to regenerate Andrew Jackson's representation connected the $20 measure with abolitionist Harriet Tubman, a person successful the Underground Railroad. However, since that announcement the medication has provided nary further details connected its plans.

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.