Five women will be featured on the quarters scheduled to be minted for 2025. The U.S. Mint announced this list will include the legendary tennis and golf star Althea Gibson as well as NAACP co-founder Ida B. Wells.
The 2025 coins will be the last set in a four-year, 20-coin production run that will celebrate important women in America.
In addition to Gibson and Wells, other women who will be honored include Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low, disabilities activist Stacey Park Milbern and astronomer Vera Rubin.
“It’s a privilege for the Mint to connect America through coins, and to tell our nation’s story through honoring the women in this amazing program,” Mint Director Ventris Gibson explained in a statement. “The pioneering women we have recognized are among the many in our nation’s history who have made significant contributions and championed change in their own unique way.”
The women were chosen by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in partnership with the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, the Congressional Bipartisan Women’s Caucus and the National Women’s History Museum.
In addition to help start the NAACP, Wells was also an investigative journalist and civil rights activist. Her work, especially when it came to lynching in the South in the late 19th century, helped set the foundation for the Civil Rights Movement.
Gibson, who became the first Black athlete to play tennis at its highest level, was also the first Black woman to win a Grand Slam title in 1956. Gibson won Wimbledon twice and is an International Tennis Hall of Fame and Sports Hall of Fame inductee.
She also made history by being the first Black athlete in the Women’s Professional Golf Tour. Other women who have been included in American Women Quarters Program’s inception include Maya Angelou and Eleanor Roosevelt.