Lady Liberty will be depicted as an African-American woman on a new U.S. coin

(Image credit: U.S. Mint)

last updated 17 January 2017

For the first time ever, Lady Liberty will be depicted as an African-American woman on U.S. coinage, the United States Mint announced Thursday. The new coin will be a 24-karat gold collectors' item with a face value of $100. Weighing in at one ounce, its metal value is currently around $1,200.

Struck on the occasion of the Mint's 225th anniversary (1792 to 2017), this Lady Liberty coin is part of a forthcoming collection of gold and silver coins representing "the cultural and ethnic diversity of the United States" that will be released over the next few years. "As we as a nation continue to evolve, so does liberty's representation," said Elisa Basnight, the Mint's chief of staff, while announcing the new coin.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.