Change for Change

Earlier this year, the US Mint began to circulate quarters featuring impactful women on the back as part of its American Women Quarters Program, a planned series of coins featuring different notable women from US history for each of the next four years.

🪙🤔 Why we're telling you this: The women you'll carry around in your pocket for 2023 were just officially announced.

1. Edith Kanakaʻole was an indigenous Hawaiian composer, chanter, dancer and teacher whose works helped preserve aspects of her culture’s history, customs and traditions that were at risk of disappearing.
2. Bessie Coleman was the first African American and first Native American woman to hold a pilot license. After being rejected from US aviation schools, she studied French to enter a pilot program abroad.
3. Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the most renowned and influential First Ladies in history, using her 12 years in the position to champion causes like racial justice, women's suffrage and disability rights. After the White House, she went on to chair the UN Human Rights Commission and help write the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights.
4. Maria Tallchief was a Native American dancer regarded as the first American prima ballerina, though many dance companies rejected her because of her heritage. She refused to change her last name despite obvious discrimination.
5. Jovita Idár was a journalist and activist who spoke out against racism experienced by Mexican Americans in the early 1900s, refusing to give in even when the Texas Rangers came to shut her newspaper down over an article criticizing President Woodrow Wilson.