A week ago Tuesday, March 13, the United States Mint at a Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) meeting unveiled design themes for Native American $1 Coins in years 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.
The dollar series with annually changing reverses, authorized by Public Law 110-82, honors important contributions made by Indian tribes and individual Native Americans to the history and development of the United States.
April Stafford, Director of the U.S. Mint’s Office of Design Management, introduced the themes for the first four $1 coins beyond 2020, noting they were developed in concert with liaisons from the National Museum of the American Indian and vetted be stakeholders on Capitol Hill. The four dollars will celebrate:
- 2021 – American Indians in the U.S. military service
- 2022 – Ely Samuel Parker
- 2023 – Charles Alexander Eastman
- 2024 – The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
Ely Samuel Parker was a trained lawyer, self-taught engineer, and Seneca tribal diplomat. He served as adjutant to Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant during the American Civil War. Parker helped draft the surrender documents signed by General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox in April 1865. Four years later, then President Grant appointed Parker as the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. He was the first Native American to hold the office, serving in the position from 1869 to 1871.
Charles Alexander Eastman was a Santee Dakota physician, writer, lecturer, and activist for Native American rights. Among his many accomplishments, Eastman created thirty-two Native American chapters of the YMCA and helped found the Boy Scouts of America.
In 1924, the Indian Citizenship Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge. The Act granted full U.S. citizenship to Native Americans while also preserving their rights of tribal citizenship and property.
Designs for the 2021 and 2022 dollars will be developed simultaneously, according to Stafford, and reviewed later this year.
Obverses of all Native American $1 Coins share Glenna Goodacre’s depiction of Sacagawea carrying her son while a part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Current 2018 Dollar Coin
This year’s $1 coin honors sports legend Jim Thorpe. Rolls and bags of them went on sale Feb. 15.
The next two designs have already been reviewed with the 2019 dollar depicting the important contributions Native Americans have made within the U.S. space program and the 2020 dollar recognizing the 75th anniversary of the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945.
