The District’s Quarter Finalists
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Duke Ellington resting his elbow on a piano. Benjamin Banneker getting ready to peer through a surveyor’s transit. Frederick Douglass sitting at a writing table.
The three final design candidates for the D.C. quarter have been completed and are nearing public unveiling by the U.S. Mint, which will ask residents for comment before selecting a winner. The designs were unveiled yesterday before a smaller audience at a breakfast meeting between Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and the D.C. Council.
Months ago, city officials submitted three other designs to the Mint featuring the slogan “Taxation Without Representation,” in an attempt to highlight the city’s lack of congressional voting rights. But the Mint rejected the designs, saying they were inappropriate. The city then developed new “design narratives” featuring musician Ellington, scientist Banneker and abolitionist and author Douglass, all of whom lived in the city.
Each of the new designs features the slogan “Justice for All,” the English translation of the city’s original Latin motto, “Justitia Omnibus,” said D.C. Secretary Stephanie D. Scott, who is overseeing the city’s submissions. Scott said the Mint will solicit public input from about May 21 through June 20, and the quarters will be minted and ready for circulation in January.
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(Posted on May 5, 2008)
Comments
A simple refusal to accept these as money would fix the problem.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 5:24 PM on May 5
My knowledge of black history is pretty poor and I admit I don’t know who any of these people are. The early American clothing and watered down features are going to make it hard for people to identify them as black. Duke Ellington looks like a caricature of the Professor from Gilligans Island. Wouldn’t Marion Barry be a better choice? I’d recognize that face anywhere. You could have him sniffing coke with a hooker on each side of him with the caption “Gettin some some’un some’un”.
Posted by at 5:50 PM on May 5
“Duke Ellington resting his elbow on a piano. Benjamin Banneker getting ready to peer through a surveyor’s transit. Frederick Douglass sitting at a writing table.”
And why not Karl Marx resting his head on the Communist Manifesto as his pillow, and of course portrayed as Frederick Douglass’s “love child” by a white “woman?”
Here is a basic approach to the DC quarter, that we should all follow; if it is the choice of this racially insulting abomination or 25 pennies, take the 25 pennies. They reduce a hero of American totalitarianism, Führer Adolf Lincoln, to his minimally acceptable and proper place; if such actions ever get enough half-sense and cents to counterbalance the half-wits who dictate such aberrations, progress might be made?
As always, God help us all!!!
Posted by John PM at 9:08 PM on May 5
At least DC has the guts to honor an actual person on their quarter. Most of the states seem to have settled on silly objects like birds, mountains, trees, or whatever.
Posted by Alan at 12:05 AM on May 6
I think a nice engraving of a murder victim’s chalk outline would be far more familiar to us all. It’s certainly what I think of when someone says “Washington D.C.”
Posted by Jacqui in AZ at 2:01 AM on May 6
Do any of these three have ANY connection to the District of Columbia?
Posted by at 3:29 AM on May 6
Why don’t they put Mayor Marion Barry on the quarter? After all, what a feat it is to be Mayor of Washington, busted on cam during a drug deal, then be elected Mayor a second time after your conviction! How many other black politicians have achieved that? That would be a real testament to the rest of the country the true status and mentality of our capital city.
Posted by blaize27 at 4:06 AM on May 6
If they hate Whites so much, let’s give them a state all for themselves. No Whites allowed. No government subsidies allowed. No need for affirmative action. All Black.
Posted by at 7:59 AM on May 6
I wonder how many African nations similarly honor white men and women.
Posted by Sarge at 9:29 AM on May 6
D.C. shouldn’t have a quarter for the same reason that it has no Congressional representation: it’s not a state. If, for some reason, D.C. must have a quarter, then it should depict a black thug pointing a pistol, gangsta style, at the holder.
Posted by Gringo_Malo at 10:42 AM on May 6
Wes Unseld would have been a better choice.
or Michael Jordan. He played with the Wizards…
Posted by at 12:59 PM on May 6
In order to truly represent the District’s black population, the winners should have been Roy Pearson, Marion Barry, and Tawana Brawley (now a DC resident).
Posted by GetBackJack at 2:15 PM on May 6
Hummm, let’s see D.C.= district of criminals. I guess Marion Barry has my vote.
Posted by Sardonicus at 4:05 PM on May 6
Marion Berry should be the guy to represent this racist and corrupt city. Maybe we should give it to Maryland—their governor deserves it.
Posted by Frank at 5:38 PM on May 6
The city of Washington was planned by a Frenchman, Pierre L’Enfant, and Benjamin Banneker was an assistant, a draftsman and/or surveyor I think. When L’Enfant got angry over something or other and left the country, Banneker was able to recall the plan and draw it out. It’s not that big a deal, after all, how big a place was the Capital in 1800? A few square miles? And it’s not as if he had to know all the street names, only the pattern. Any intelligent 18 year old ought to be able to draw his own part of town, but for Blacks, this is a major achievement, so he’s a hero to them.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 7:21 PM on May 6
Why not mayor Marion Barry ? He is a lot more symbolic of blacks living in our America.
Posted by Michigan Patriot at 9:35 PM on May 6
Dear God in heaven, what is our nation coming to???
DC was planned by whites, founded by whites, rebuilt by whites after the war of 1812, and has sported a white ruler ever since it existed.
Why not at least depict Abraham Lincoln? As ‘The Great Emancipator’, shouldn’t he be good enough?
Posted by Dark-Star at 5:25 PM on May 7
“Wouldn’t Marion Barry be a better choice? I’d recognize that face anywhere. You could have him sniffing coke with a hooker on each side of him with the caption “Gettin some some’un some’un”.”
YES! this is a great idea, what better represents the wash. DC of the last few decades. naturally the motto for the coin has to be “unowutimsayen?”
Posted by at 11:43 PM on May 7