Helen Keller

The US Treasury has minted coins featuring poet Maya Angelou - The First black woman ever featured on the US 25-cent coin known as a quarter.

Angelou, a poet and activist, was The First black woman to write and perform a poem at a presidential inauguration.

Coins Are planned for other pioneering women, including an astronaut, a tribal chief and an Actress - as part of The American Women Quarters programme.

The Move was hailed by The Nation 's first female treasury secretary.

" Each Time we redesign our currency, we have the chance to Say Something about Our Country - what we value, and how we've progressed as A Society , " Janet Yellen said in a statement on Monday.

Angelou - an author and social activist - died in 2014 at the Age Of 86.

She shot to fame with her ground-breaking autobiography in 1969, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, about her childhood in the Deep South .

She received dozens of honorary degrees and wrote over 30 bestselling works. In 2010, she was given a Presidential Medal of Freedom - the highest US civilian Award - by President Barack Obama .

The new quarter depicts Angelou with open and outstretched arms. Behind her is a flying bird and Rising Sun , which Are " inspired by her poetry and symbolic of The Way she lived" the US treasury department said.

The Front side of the quarter shows the traditional bust of George Washington , the Country 's first president.

The US Mint plans to issue 20 more quarters over The Next Four Years , depicting other American women who played important roles in the Country 's history.

Coins Are also planned this year for Sally Ride , The First female US astronaut; Wilma Mankiller , The First female chief of the Cherokee Nation and a campaigner for Indigenous Rights ; and Anna May Wong , who is considered The First Chinese-American film star in Hollywood.

Plans to replace President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill with black abolitionist Harriet Tubman - who rescued enslaved people through The Underground Railroad - Are still in The Works .

Historical women have rarely featured on US currency.

In the 19Th Century , The First US First Lady , Martha Washington , was on the $1 silver certificate and Native American  heroine Pocahontas was in a group picture on the $20 bill.

On coins, Sacagawea, a Native American explorer, appears on the gold dollar. Suffragist Susan B Anthony and deaf-blind activist Helen Keller appeared on the Silver Dollar and Alabama quarter respectively.

Source of news: bbc.com