Miami Valley Coin Club

Black History & U.S. Coinage

America’s first African-American to appear on a commemorative coin, or any coin, was Booker T. Washington in 1946. The purpose was to raise money for maintenance of his memorial birthplace in Franklin County, Virginia. House Resolution 6528 Act passed Congress on August 7, 1946. Since then, other Black Americans have also made appearances on commemorative coins.

In 1997 Jackie Robinson was honored on a silver dollar coin and a five-dollar gold coin. Robinson was the first black player to play Major League Baseball.

The next year, 1998, Crispus Attucks, a stevedore or dockworker, the first person killed in the Boston Massacre, and thus the Revolutionary War, was honored on the Black American patriots coin.

In 2007 Little Rock Central High School and nine African-American students were honored on a one-dollar coin to highlight the desegregation of Arkansas schools. President Eisenhower sent the 101^st Airborne Division of the Army to protect the rights of the nine students.

Then in 2014, the Mint issued the Civil Rights Act of 1964 commemorative coin honoring the signage into law of the bill by President Lyndon Johnson. The three African-American figures pictured on the obverse are not individually identified.

In April 2006, Congress awarded a Congressional Gold Metal to surviving members of the “Tuskegee Airmen”, the 761^st Tank Battalion and the 452^nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion, three all-black military units that served during and after World War II. Medal copies in bronze are available to the public.