Obverse: Booker T Washington profile, facing to the right. He has a determined look on his face, and close cropped hair that contributes to a military bearing. He is shown wearing a simple and elegant suit (possibly a frock coat or other Victorian garment). Inscriptions: "United States of America", "Booker T. Washington", the date and denomination – "1946 Half Dollar" and the motto "E Pluribus Unum".
Reverse: "Booker T. Washington Birthplace Memorial" – a National Monument that is now maintained by the US Park Service. The monument preserves part of the tobacco farm where Washington was born, along with slave cabins and vegetable plots. Back to the coin – it has the central legend "From Slave Cabin to Hall of Fame", set in the center between two buildings. The upper building appears to be the South Entrance to the US Hall of Fame at the Bronx Community College. The lower building is a simple slave cabin. The motto "In god we trust" is on the left of the slave cabin, and the location "Franklin County, VA." is on the right of the cabin. The word "Liberty" below.
This commemorative half dollar features Booker T. Washington, a man who worked tirelessly to promote education and opportunities for freed slaves at the tail end of Reconstruction. These were minted from 1946 to 1951 at the Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco mints (for a total of 18 varieties).
For coins struck at the Denver or San Francisco Mints, the mint mark appears below the cabin and above "Liberty".
Other details: When the coin was issued, putting an African American on a US coin was very controversial (segregation was still widely practiced throughout the south). Booker Taliaferro Washington was the first African American honored on a US coin; he was also the first to be honored with his own US postage stamp, the first to have a US ship named after him, the first invited to the White House as a guest, and the first to receive a National Monument in his honor. He was also honored on another commemorative half dollar from 1951 to 1954 (along with George Washington Carver).
Despite the high esteem that history holds Mr. Washington in, this coin was not well received in its time. The large number of mints and multiple years of minting may also have played a part, since these required a major investment for collectors to complete the series. The coins were also minted after a glut of other commemorative half dollars, and collectors were growing tired of them. From 1954 to 1982, there would be a long gap before commemorative half dollars were minted again.
Congress passed a bill authorizing production of the Booker T. Washington Memorial Half Dollar on August 7, 1946. The bill was initiated by Mr. S. J. Phillips the president of the Booker T. Washington Birthplace Memorial Commission, who asked congress to include a surcharge on the coins to fund various memorial efforts including the purchase of Dr. Washington's Original log Cabin birthplace in rural Virginia. The original authorization was for 5,000,000 which Mr Phillips claimed he could sell for $1.00 in "90 days or less" to the "black community". Unfortunately things didn't work out quite as well as he had planned.
The coin's purpose was to raise funds for the purchase and restoration of his birthplace site in Franklin County, Virginia. It was (rather naively/optimistically) expected that many of the nation's 15 million African-Americans would be eager to buy one or more examples of this significant coin. Instead, the coins were sold almost exclusively to established coin collectors, who soon came to resent their overabundance and repetitive nature.
S. J. Phillips was in charge of the Booker T. Washington Birthplace Memorial Commission, and he chose Sculptor Charles Keck to design the coin. Keck, who had previously created the Panama-Pacific Gold Dollar and the Lynchburg, Virginia Half Dollar, submitted models that were quickly approved by the U. S. Mint.
Without realizing that another artist had been engaged, African-American artist Isaac Scott Hathaway, volunteered his services for free. He used a life mask of Booker T. Washington and submitted his designs to SJ Phillips.
S. J. Phillips submitted both sets of models to the Commission of Fine Arts which, chose Hathaway's design. This caused a major controversy before mintage even began, and the BTW Birthplace Memorial Commission had to pay Keck for his work even though the Mint proceeded using Hathaway's models.
The 1946-47 series were distributed directly by the BTW Commission, but the expected volume of sales did not materialize and many of the 1946 coins were melted down for their silver content. The coin dealership Bebee’s in Omaha handled sales from 1948 to 1951 and sold the majority of those coins directly to collectors. Huge quantities still went unsold and were passed around between coin dealers at wholesale prices. Small hoards existed for decades afterward and dragged down prices.
The organizer of the committee (S. J. Phillips) became mired in failed promises and charges of malfeasance. The money that was raised through the sale of these coins was insufficient for the original purpose of the program. In fact, the commission owed $140,000! Eventually, Virginia's state government stepped in to purchase Booker T. Washington's birthplace and presented it to the federal government. It is now a National Historic Monument.