081724 Way Black History Fact - Celia Cruz...the New Face of the Quarter

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Our Way Black History Fact celebrates the life of Afro-Cuban singer Celia Cruz as she is now on the quarter and her coin is being distributed by the U.S. Mint.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now, though, It's time for the Way Black History
Fact and Today's Way Black History Fact is sponsored by
Major Threads. For innovative, fashionable sportswear. Checkmajor threads dot com. Today,
I'm going to share with you a bit from Time magazine. First,
so I'll start here. The limited edition Celia Cruz quoters
are officially in circulation starting Monday, the first US coins
to feature an Afro Latina figure. So this is kind

(00:22):
of ebony excellence, kind of way Black History fact that'll
come later. Give me a second, all right. Cruz, the
four time Latin Grammy Award winner known for her salsa
hits including Lavida Essuna Carnival and La Negratienne Tumbao, was
selected as one of twenty women whose image will appear
on the back of a quarter as part of the
American Women's Quarters Program AWQP. Other twenty twenty four recipients
include doctor Mary Edwards Walker, a surgeon an abolitionist, and

(00:45):
Patsy Takemoto Mink, the first Asian American woman to serve
in Congress. The Elizabeth C. Babcock, director of the Smithsonian
American Women's History Museum, says the AWQP is another way
to document history. Quote, it's been an absolutely amazing opportunity
for us to help in our mission, which is to
make sure that as we think about American history, we
tell the complete history, which obviously includes the story of

(01:08):
the many ways women have been a part of our
history and continue being involved unquote, she says. The US
Mint says they cannot predict the exact amount of Celiacruz
quarters they will ship out, as that depends on orders
they receive from the Federal Reserve, but they say typically
they produce anywhere between two hundred and five hundred million
of each quarter. Quarters with the Queen of Salsa are

(01:29):
only going to be made for a limited time until
mid October. Quote. We will continue to mint Seliacruz quarters
until we transition to our next honoree. After that, no
more Celiacruz quarters will be minted. Women have long been
underrepresented when it comes to national currency. The first woman
to be featured on a US coin was Spanish Queen
Isabella in eighteen ninety three, though the next coin with

(01:50):
a female figure would not come again until nineteen seventy nine,
per the US Mint. To combat this, Congress passed the
Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of twenty twenty, which are
authorized the US meant to create new designs on the
quarter dollar coin to commemorate five American women a year.
That program has been running since twenty twenty two and
will come to an end in twenty twenty five, and
the next reading comes from US mint dot Org. In

(02:12):
nineteen seventy four, Cruz joined a new record label, Fania,
which was devoted solely to the genre she was in.
She was the only woman in the Fania All Stars
and one of few women to succeed in the male
dominated salsa world. She also appeared in several Hollywood movies
and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Cruz's numerous honors and awards include four Latin Grammy Awards,

(02:35):
a Presidential Medal of Arts, and three Grammy Awards, including
posthumous Lifetime Achievement Grammy. She was inducted into Billboard's Latin
Music Hall of Fame and the International Latin Music Hall
of Fame. Celia Cruz died in New Jersey on July sixteen,
two thousand and three. Her song's performances and spirit remained
international treasures Cruz's influence reached well beyond her music. She
was and is a cultural icon celebrating her Cuban culture,

(02:58):
which helped her other April Latino Americans embrace their heritage.
I want to share something with you that maybe I
haven't shared on the show, but my grandma's from Cuba
and Celyi Acruz is her and her being on a
quarter is something that I wish my grandma could have
lived to see. So this is indeed ebony excellence. This

(03:21):
is of course a way Black history fact. And if
you get a chance to listen to some of Celia A.
Cruz's music, especially Labina essnor Carnovo, which is kind of
the big song that she's known for, it's such a
happy song and it's such a danceable song if you're
into dancing, and you don't have to be good at dancing,
but it's a really good song. And if you hear it,

(03:43):
you'll know it because it's when they say she's a
cultural icon, she absolutely is. So as soon as you
hear the first few notes, you'll be like, oh, I
know this song. This is a great song. She's the
one singing it, and we're happy to be able to
share this with you today