Female tribal leaders praise planned Wilma Mankiller quarter

The design has been chosen for a new quarter honoring Wilma Mankiller.

It will be the third coin of the American Women Quarters program, which will begin circulating in 2022. The selection of Mankiller, who was the first woman elected principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, was announced in June by the U.S. Mint.  The design features an image of Mankiller, the wind at her back, gazing to the right, into the future.

She is wrapped in a traditional shawl with the seven-pointed star of the Cherokee Nation to her left. Below her, “Cherokee Nation” appears in the Cherokee syllabary. The coin was designed by noted U.S. Mint sculptor Phoebe Hemphill, who also sculpted the 2020 Native American one-dollar coin. Mankiller is one of five women chosen by the U.S. Mint for the new American Women Quarters program.

The others are writer, performer and social activist Maya Angelou; physicist and space pioneer Sally Ride,  suffrage leader Nina Otero-Warren  and Chinese-American film star Anna May Wong.

Others are expected to be chosen for the years 2023 to 2025.

For more information, see Mankiller quarter.