She is still a Phenomenal Woman! Eight years after her death legendary poet, author, actress, and courageous Civil Rights shero, Dr. Maya Angelou makes history. The United States Mint celebrates the accomplishments and contributions through the "American Women Quarters Program," and Dr. Angelou is the very first female trailblazer to be given this honor. She once said, "Listen to yourself and in that quietude, you might hear the voice of God."


Even more exciting is the fact that the Maya Angelou quarter is the first in the "American Women Quarters Program," to be put in circulation. The program, by the way, is a four-year initiative that includes coins featuring other, very diverse prominent women, in U.S. history such as:

Astronaut Sally Ride; actress Anna May Wong; suffragist and politician Nina Otero-Warren; and the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation Wilma Mankiller. According to the U.S. Mint, collectors can look for these other coins to be released in circulation now through 2025.

Angelou's last statement was captured at her home in Winston-Salem a week before her death. She did a video for the Major League Baseball’s Civil Rights Luncheon in Houston on May 22, 2014. Astonishingly what she said still resonates today. She said

“It has been said often that there are none so blind as those who will not see,” she said. “There are people who go through life burdened by ignorance because they refuse to see. When they do not recognize the truth that they belong to their community and their community belongs to them … it is because they refuse to see.”

This extraordinary woman passed away on the morning of May 28, 2014, at the age of 86. Learn more about the life and legacy of Maya Angelou below.

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