Tag Archives: Numismatist Magazine

Diversity in Money – Blog 4: Honoring Women and People with Disabilities

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About two years ago, I introduced myself as a numismatist (collector of money) and published three blogs that intersected my hobby with my profession as a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant.

In June, 2020 – “Black Lives Matter and the $20 Bill – an Awful American Travesty,” I recounted the very sad story of how the approved plans to place African-American abolitionist Harriet Tubman on our $20 bill got derailed.

In July, 2020, I followed with – “A Black Lives Matter and an American Coinage Travesty – blog 2,” I recount the sad story of a Ku Klux Klan-inspired coin.

Then in December, 2020 – I connect our nation’s monetary currency to diversity issues: in “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime” I recount how Republicans during the Great Depression attempted to censure this song.

Now I am pleased to share two areas of diversity highlighted in coinage and paper money.

The first is the next set of quarters now being issued in the USA celebrating women. For the past few decades, the United States Mint has issued 5 quarters a year with different reverse sides. For 11 years it was general facts about the 50 states and territories, and then after that, 11 years of Nationals Parks and Monuments. Now in 2022 a new cycle of 20 quarters has begun – celebrating diverse famous women of the USA. This year’s five are:

• Maya Angelou – celebrated writer, performer, and social activist
• Dr. Sally Ride – physicist, astronaut, educator, and first American woman in space
• Wilma Mankiller – first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation
• Nina Otero-Warren – a leader in New Mexico’s suffrage movement and the first female superintendent of Santa Fe public schools
• Anna May Wong – first Chinese American film star in Hollywood

I already have my first two that are already out. With only men gracing our major coinage and paper money, it is about time to include women on our circulating money.

Second is a cool article in the May, 2022 issue of the Numismatist Magazine titled “Deaf Numismatics” by Kenneth S. Rothschild. The byline of the article is “Members of the deaf community have achieved success in many fields, as currency worldwide attests.”

Too often, people with disabilities have not been fully included in diversity discussions and recognized for overcoming their challenges to achieve great things. Deaf people (and their supportive allies) on worldwide money have included:

Cecilia Grierson, the first woman doctor in Argentina and pioneer for the education of the blind and deaf on their 5,000 peso note.

• Australia’s great story writer Henry Lawson on their first $10 bill
• Famous blind and deaf American Helen Keller on the American 2003 state quarter series
• Blind artist Pinturicchio, who lived in Italy over 600 years ago, on the San Marino two euro coin
• Denmark’s Alexandra, wife of England’s King Edward VII became deaf in later years and is honored on Papau New Guinea’s 100-kina gold coin
• When North Carolina printed its own money during the American Civil War, it was printed at the North Carolina School for the Deaf, and the attribution is included on some the bills.

This comprehensive article includes many more, and I do hope The Numismatist follows up with some additional articles on other segments of the people with disabilities community.

A Black Lives Matter and an American Coinage Travesty – blog 2: A KKK-sponsored coin

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A close up of the bas-relief on Stone Mountain, and view from a distance.

As a diversity consultant and numismatist (a collector of money,) I am now finding some interesting connections between our nation’s money and our diversity as a nation. In my last blog, “Black Lives Matter and the $20 Bill – an Awful American Travesty,” (do use the link and read it), I recounted the very sad story of how the approved plans to place African-American abolitionist Harriet Tubman on our $20 bill got derailed.

In this blog, I am going to share the history of one of our commemorative half dollars that has a disturbing connection to the horrific racist group the Ku Klux Klan, abbreviated the KKK. I was recently catching up on some of my back magazine reading and read this story in one of my 2018 Numismatist Magazines. If it were not for my interest in coin collecting and reading this story, I would have never known about the sordid history of Stone Mountain and it’s world record size bas-relief carving.

When the World’s fair was held in St. Louis in 1892 on the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival into America, the US produced its first two commemorative coins; the Columbus half dollar and the Isabella quarter. Since that time, the US has issued numerous commemorative coins to celebrate historic milestones, or as fundraisers for projects. Most often, these commemorative coins are sold to the public for a premium over their face value.

This blog summarizes the history of the 1925 Stone Mountain half dollar, and you can read the complete detailed story using this link to Coinweek’s online article “The Birth of the Klan Half Dollar.”

The beginnings:  The story starts in 1909 when the Atlanta, Georgia chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) floated the idea of carving into nearby Stone Mountain a relief to honor fallen Confederate soldiers. Coincidentally, the KKK found its second birth and resurgence when a group of 34 white men met atop Stone Mountain on Thanksgiving Day 1915, with many of the men wearing the white bed sheets and pointed caps most associated with the klan.

The plans turn into action: One of the men present, Sam Venable, was the owner of Stone Mountain and later deeded the north face to the UDC to actually execute the carving project. The UDC hired renowned sculptor Gutzon Borglum (who also designed the carvings on Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota) to design a Confederate battle scene for the face of the mountain. Some KKK-ers actually wanted members of the klan in their robes to be carved into the scene, but Borglum prevailed with a plan that featured Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. After meeting some of these southern leaders, sculptor Borglum himself joined the KKK and authored a horribly racist and anti-Semitic essay.

1.3 million of these “Stone Mountain” half dollars were minted

Plans stalled during World War I, and restarted after 1920. The work was expensive, so in 1923 project leaders started to advocate for a creation of a commemorative coin that would be sold for a premium to raise funds for the project. Borglum stopped his work on the mountain carving to work on designing the coin. Congress passed the legislation, the billed was signed by President Coolidge, and 1.3 million coins were minted in 1925.

The Completion: Various conflicts resulted in the firing of Borglum, and the carving work on Stone Mountain stopped for several decades, not to be completed until 1965. Over the past decade, the carving has been a great source of conflict, and will likely be even more so in today’s debate about memorials that arose from the motivation to promote white supremacy.

Three quick interesting closing points:

1) Isn’t it a disgrace that our US Treasury Department could produce a commemorative coin to aid a project of the Ku Klux Klan, yet recently scuttled plans to honor Harriet Tubman on our $20 bill?

2) Recently Richard Rose, President of the NAACP, called Stone Mountain “the largest shrine to white supremacy in the history of the world.”

3) One line from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s famed “I have a dream speech” included, “Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.”  (See page 6 of the speech)

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Blog author Stan Kimer is a diversity consultant and trainer who handles all areas of workplace diversity and with a deep expertise in LGBT diversity strategy and training, Unconscious Bias and Employee Resource Groups. Please explore the rest of my website and never hesitate to contact me to discuss diversity training for your organization, or pass my name onto your HR department.  [email protected]