Lady Liberty Coin Will Feature The Face Of A Black Woman For First Time

Oh boy. What are racists going to do with their future money? First, there was the historically awesome news that Harriett Tubman would be replacing Andrew Jackson on the face of the $20 bill. I suppose then at least the conspiratorial gold standard folks could at least pin their hopes on some old fashioned golden coinage. But the U.S. Mint has other plans. Really, really great plans.

The U.S. Mint announced that it is releasing a new version of the $100 gold coin this year that will for the first time feature a black woman as the face of Lady Liberty. The backside of the coin will feature a traditional eagle flying “with eyes toward opportunity and a determination to attain it.”

But if you turn it over, instead of the traditional Roman inspired visage, you will soon find a young, African American woman wearing a crown of floating stars over her tied back, dreadlocked hair.

“Lady Liberty, as depicted in coinage throughout the years, is modeled after our society’s continued evolution,” U.S. Mint Chief of Staff Elisa Basnight said during an event announcing the new coin. “As we as a nation continue to evolve, so does Liberty’s representation.”

Sadly, in the face of a continuing growing wealth gap that affects black woman more than almost any other demographic, the $100 collectible coin will also come with an incredibly steep price tag of $1,500.

Still, it’s not the price that set off a minor Twitter firestorm. Instead, it was the racist rebukes of a handful of people with way too much time on their hands who are somehow offended by the powerful new coin design, which is scheduled to become available sometime in April.

After the U.S. Mint unveiled the new coin design through its Twitter feed, a few responses like this came trolling in:

Thankfully, that little bit of vinegar did absolutely nothing to deter plans for releasing the historic coin that appears far more enthusiastic about it than a trickle of haters would imply.

“The coin demonstrates our roots in the past through such traditional elements as the inscriptions United States of America, Liberty, E Pluribus Unum and In God We Trust,” Rhett Jeppson, principal deputy director of the U.S. Mint, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “We boldly look to the future by casting Liberty in a new light, as an African-American woman wearing a crown of stars, looking forward to ever brighter chapters in our Nation’s history book.”