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    The Maya Angelou Quarter History and Facts

     

    The Maya Angelou Quarter History and FactsSome of the women chosen as honorees for the American Women Quarters Program have stories and biographies that are not especially well-known to the American public. Maya Angelou is not one of them.

    Instead, Ms. Angelou is nothing short of one of the finest and most celebrated poets in American history. She was a key figure in the civil rights movement and had notable interactions with both Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King.

    Despite her death in 2014, she remains a member of the cultural pantheon in the United States. Thus, her inclusion on the quarter was almost a given.

    Biography

    Marguerite Ann Johnson was born in St. Louis, Missouri on April 4, 1928. Her early life was tumultuous, as her parents divorced when she was three years old.

    As a result, her father Bailey sent her and her brother, Bailey Johnson, Jr., to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with their paternal grandmother. During this period, her brother gave her the nickname “Maya,” and needless to say, it stuck.

    Angelou later recounted that her grandmother, Annie Henderson, was economically stable during the Great Depression at a time when the finances of most African-Americans were anything but stable. The stability stemmed from Ms. Henderson’s ownership and operation of a general store.

    However, Angelou’s situation was irrevocably changed for the worse four years later. Her father reappeared in Stamps and sent both she and Bailey Jr. back to St. Louis to live with their mother.

    Shortly after her return, she became a victim of rape and sexual abuse at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend. After informing her brother of the assault, the boyfriend was arrested and convicted.

    Despite the conviction, he served only a single day behind bars before being released. His freedom was short-lived, as he was murdered four days after his release.

    Angelou suspected her uncles to be responsible for the murder. However, she felt guilt about the death, as she believed her voice and the words she spoke to be the catalyst. So, she elected to become mute, and remained so for nearly five years.

    Shortly after the episode, she moved back to Arkansas. During her silent years, she developed her love of reading, poetry, and observation. However, after some prodding from a teacher and family friend, she began to speak again.

    Then, she moved with her brother to join their mother – this time, in Oakland, California. During this period, she managed to become the first African-American female employed as a streetcar conductor. Interestingly, she completed this task at age 15 – she lied on her application and said she was 19.

    Angelou graduated from the California Labor School at age 17. Almost immediately thereafter, she gave birth to the only child she would ever have. Her son, born in 1944, was initially named Clyde Johnson, but he later elected to change his name to Guy Johnson.

    In 1951, she married a US Navy electrician named Tosh Angelos. The marriage didn’t last, but she adopted her surname from this marriage – Angelou – and combined it with her brother’s nickname to form her world-famous sobriquet.

    She began to gain fame and acclaim during the 1950s. She appeared in plays and wrote her first musical album.

    Angelou also began her political activism during this period. Notably, she became an ardent supporter of Fidel Castro and was a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Toward the end of the 1950s, she became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the behest of Dr. King.

    Angelou pulled back from performing dramatically in the 1960s. She began to travel and live abroad, with major stints in both Egypt and Ghana as a freelance writer and editor. However, she also completed her first autobiography during this period, and it was this book that finally cemented her as a household name.

    I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings recounts her struggles from childhood and her early adult years in honest and, for the time, frank detail. The 1969 release was an international smash, and remained on the New York Times’ bestseller list for two years.

    Angelou continued to write, compose, publish, and – occasionally – act for the next decade. She received a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1972 for her first book of poetry and a Tony Award nomination for her performance in the Broadway play Look Away during the next year. She also played a notable role in the seminal television series Roots in 1977.

    Then, in 1981, she accepted a lifetime professorship at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She remained a lecturer and instructor there for the rest of her life, despite not holding a formal bachelor’s degree or other advanced degree.

    In 1993, she became the first poet since Robert Frost to read a poem at a presidential inauguration. Her performance of On the Pulse of the Morning to celebrate Bill Clinton’s ascension to the presidency pushed her legend higher than ever before, and even garnered her a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word.

    She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010 from President Obama. Of the election of the nation’s first African-American president, she declared that “(w)e are growing up beyond the idiocies of racism and sexism.”

    Angelou’s health began to decline shortly after receiving this highest of civilian honors. She passed away after a long illness on May 28, 2014, in Winston-Salem. Her mind remained sharp until the end of her life – she had published her seventh autobiography only a year prior, and was said to have been working on an eighth at the time of her death.

    Legacy

    Maya Angelou continues to be one of the most celebrated American figures of the past 100 years. Her list of awards, accolades, and honors is too long to recount in a succinct manner.

    More to the point, she was a prolific creator of all manner of media. She published seven autobiographies, 18 books of poetry, seven children’s books, two cookbooks, and a host of other written works.

    Her last acting role on television and film occurred in 2006. Funnily enough, she played May in, of all things, Madea Family Reunion.

    Nevertheless, if ever there was a shoe-in for the American Women Quarters Program, Maya Angelou fits the bill. So, let’s discuss the coin itself.

    The 2022 Quarter

    So great was Angelou’s contribution, she was featured on the very first coin of the US Mint’s program. The 2022 debut revealed elements both traditional and new.

    The obverse of the coin remained the same or similar to that of all quarters minted since 1932. President George Washington faces to the right with a neat ponytail and the word LIBERTY emblazoned across the top of the coin.

    However, the reverse of the coin is the field that pays tribute to Ms. Angelou. She is depicted facing to the left, with her arms outstretched and her name printed simply on the left of the coin. Her image is on top of two images – a rising sun, and the shape of a Purple Martin, a member of the sparrow family native to the American Midwest and South.

    It is a fitting tribute to the late poet, who pulled herself up from terrible trauma to become one of the most celebrated figures of the 20th (and 21st) century.

    All Market Updates are provided as a third party analysis and do not necessarily reflect the explicit views of JM Bullion Inc. and should not be construed as financial advice.