UNCHOSEN SEMIQUINCENTENNIAL COIN DESIGNS

 
Actors surrounded Brandon Beach, the U.S. Treasurer,
and Kristie McNally, the Mint's acting secretary

George Washington was there. And Benjamin Franklin. And even Abraham Lincoln, who joked that the last time he was in a theater it did not go so well. These paid re-enactors and other dignitaries gathered the other evening in a Philadelphia auditorium for the unveiling of coins designed to celebrate the country's 250th anniversary. They provided a traditional, even simple, take on the American journey, with Pilgrims and founding fathers and a stovepipe hat tip to the Gettysburg Address.

Left unmentioned amid the event's fife-and-drum pageantry was that these coins also represented a rejection of a different set of designs — meant to commemorate certain other inspiring chapters of the nation's history, including abolition, women's suffrage and the civil rights movement.

An event largely unnoticed by anyone other than coin enthusiasts, then, wound up reflecting the national struggle over how the American story is told, as the Trump administration seeks to frame any focus on the knottier moments in the nation's arc as "wokeness."

The Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, is authorized by law to make final decisions about coin designs, including these 250th anniversary coins — a dime, a half-dollar and five quarters — which are both collectible and legal tender. But his choices ignored the more diverse recommendations for the quarters by the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, a bipartisan group mandated by Congress to review the U.S. Mint's proposed designs for American coins.

To commemorate the abolition of slavery, the committee had recommended an image of Frederick Douglass on the obverse and shackled and unshackled hands on the reverse. To honor women's suffrage, a World War I-era protester carrying a "Votes for Women" flag. And to evoke the civil rights movement, a 6-year-old Ruby Bridges, books in hand, helping to desegregate the New Orleans school system in 1960.

Mr. Bessent opted instead for the more general, and much whiter. For the Mayflower Compact, a Pilgrim couple staring into the distance. For the Revolutionary War, a profile of Washington. For the Declaration of Independence, a profile of Thomas Jefferson. For the Constitution, a profile of James Madison. And for the Gettysburg Address, a profile of Lincoln on the obverse, and on the reverse, a pair of interlocking hands. No shackles.

The rejection of its recommendations, along with the selection of designs it had not vetted, did not sit well with the committee, whose 11 members include numismatists, historians and members of the public. None attended the event last Wednesday, which served as a table setter for another divisive numismatic matter, also unmentioned: the administration's plan to feature President Trump on a dollar coin.

Portraying a sitting president on a coin defies American tradition dating to the first president. Washington rejected proposals to feature his image on coins for fear of echoing the English monarchy from which the new country had just freed itself — a liberation sparked by the Declaration of Independence, which these coins, including one featuring Mr. Trump, are supposed to commemorate.

Donald Scarinci, a New Jersey lawyer and the longest-serving member of the advisory committee, called Wednesday night's unveiling "another sad day for America," because it marked the first time since the board's establishment in 2003 that "the United State Mint announced coin designs that the committee never reviewed."

Len Augsburger notes:

To read the complete article, see:
The War on ‘Wokeness' Comes to the U.S. Mint (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/us/coins-us-250th-anniversary.html)

See also:
Killing the penny was just the start. Trump is rewriting the rules on America's coins (https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/12/business/trump-changes-coins-policy)

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