Korean American Human Rights Activist in a Wheelchair
Stacy Park Milburn... Human Rights Advocacy Since Her Teens
Served as Policy Advisor in the Obama Administration
The first Korean American will be featured on U.S. currency.
On August 8, the United States Mint announced that it would begin distributing the Stacy Park Milburn (1987?2020, Korean name Park Ji-hye) Quarter (25-cent coin) to the Federal Reserve Banks and coin terminals, with circulation starting on August 12. This coin is the 19th design in the U.S. Mint's American Women Quarters Program. Since 2022, the Mint has issued five quarters each year to honor the achievements of pioneering women. On August 13, at the Warner Bros. Theater in the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., the Mint will hold a celebration to honor Milburn’s life and commemorate the release of the new quarter. The event will feature a traditional Korean fan dance performed by dancers in hanbok. As the highlight of the ceremony, 2,000 sparkling new coins will be poured onto a traditional Korean octagonal tray, symbolizing the celebration of Milburn’s life as both an American and a Korean.
The obverse of the Stacy Park Milburn Quarter features the face of George Washington, the first President of the United States, while the reverse depicts Milburn, with short hair and glasses, seated in a power wheelchair and giving a speech. Between 300 million and 700 million of Milburn’s coins are expected to be minted. Considering that quarters issued in the 1970s are still in circulation today, Milburn’s image could be a part of Americans’ daily lives for the next 50 years.
Milburn was born in 1987 as the eldest of three children to Joel Milburn, a U.S. serviceman stationed in Korea, and her mother, Jean Milburn. Although she was born with a degenerative muscle disease, she spent her school years encouraged by her parents, who told her, "You are no different from other children." However, after a fall in fourth grade, she realized that her body was different from others. She began to write about the discomforts, injustices, and areas for improvement she experienced as a person with a disability on her personal blog. These writings resonated with many and brought her recognition as a youth disability rights activist.
In 2007, at the age of 20, Milburn played a leading role in the North Carolina state government’s inclusion of disability history in the public high school curriculum. After graduating from Methodist University and Mills College, she moved to California, where she devoted herself to human rights activism for people with disabilities, people of color, and sexual minorities. As a result, in 2014, she was appointed as a policy advisor for intellectual disabilities in the Barack Obama administration.
In 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Milburn led efforts to deliver emergency medical and hygiene supplies, such as masks, to vulnerable communities. However, her existing kidney cancer and other health issues worsened, and she passed away on May 19, her 33rd birthday.
In addition to Milburn, this year’s quarter designs feature journalist and civil rights activist Ida Wells (1862?1931), Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low (1860?1927), astrophysicist Vera Rubin (1928?2016), and tennis player Althea Gibson (1927?2003).
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