Acclaimed poet and author Maya Angelou and astronaut Sally Ride will be memorialized on a new set of quarters scheduled to enter circulation next January. The two trailblazing women will lead the initial rollout and appear on a series of 25-cent pieces that will be released over the next four years by the U.S. Mint. Angelou and Ride will be engrained on the reverse, or tails side of the coins, and will be honored as part of the American Women Quarters Program. A new design of George Washington will be added to the heads side as well.
More than 20 women will be honored through the American Women Quarters Program, and the new coins will feature ladies from a wide spectrum of fields including, but not limited to, suffrage, civil rights, abolition, government, humanities, science, space and the arts. According to People, the women being selected also will be from ethnically, racially and geographically diverse backgrounds.
Angelou and Ride, the NASA astronaut who in 1983 became the first American woman to fly into space, were chosen by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen after consulting with the Smithsonian Institution’s American Women’s History Initiative, the National Women’s History Museum and the Congressional Bipartisan Women’s Caucus. The U.S. Mint is also taking submissions for more women who have left their mark on American history over the next four years, and the public can cast their choices at https://tinyurl.com/c5ut9zb4. By law, no living person can be considered for the honor, and George Washington must remain on the heads side.
The U.S. Mint has released a first look of the coins, and Angelou’s will come in seven different designs. Each of Angelou’s pieces includes a depiction of her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, as well as her name.
Check out the samples below of Ride and Angelou.
