The Maya Angelou stamp has us fantasizing about other amazing women on postage
It’s wonderful that author, poet, and activist Maya Angelou recently got her own stamp — even though the quote on the stamp is not a Maya Angelou quote. We’d love to see more inspiring women on stamps! In 2011, the United States Postal Service announced that the folks on stamps don’t have to be deceased — notable living people are eligible to be featured on postage. Why not enjoy the honor while you can? With that in mind, we have a few suggestions:
Novelist/Nobel Prize winner/living legend Toni Morrison, 84. (Do yourself a favor and get to know her better in this New York Times Magazine piece.)
Labor rights activist Dolores Huerta, recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, who is still working as an advocate for the working poor at the age of 84.
Retired NASA astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison, who was the first African-American woman in space in 1992 and still works to promote science literacy. (Follow her on Twitter!)
Meryl Streep, actress, three-time Academy Award winner and national treasure.
Buffy Saint-Marie, singer, songwriter, social activist. Her protest songs — about the Vietnam War and the mistreatment of Native Americans and colonization of North America by white people — continue to resonate. Sure, she was born in Canada (stamp subjects are supposed to be from the U.S.), but her impact on this country (including appearing on Sesame Street for five years in the late ’70s/early ’80s) is undeniable. She just dropped a new track you can listen to here.
Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, is an icon of the reproductive rights movement.
YOU get a stamp and YOU get a stamp… EVERYBODY GETS A STAMP!
Designs by Elisa Rodriguez-Vila. Follow her on Twitter!