The effigy of the poet and activist afroestadounidense Maya Angelou appears in a new generation of “quarters”, the famous American 25-cent coins, the first copies of which were already minted by the Mint house from the United States and will soon be in circulation.
The coins will be produced in large volumes for everyday use and minted in Philadelphia and Denver, according to a statement released Monday.
The new edition is the result of a bill by California-elect Democratic legislator Barbara Lee, voted in late 2020.
The 25-cent coin, the most widely used in the United States, had only been minted in alternative versions since 1932 with the series of 50 coins representing each state, in the 2000s, and then with that of national parks, between 2010 and 2021.
That of Maya Angelou is the first copy of a series called “Prominent American Women”, which will honor various illustrious women such as Sally Ride, astronaut and physics; Wilma Mankiller, first Native American woman head of the Cherokee Nation; Nina Otero-WarrenHispanic, politician and activist; and the actress Anna May Wong hailed as the first star of Asian descent.
Known for her memoirs and poetry, Maya Angelou, who died in 2014 at age 86, is considered one of the most iconic authors on the condition of black communities in the United States.
Friend of the black activist and religious leader Malcolm X and activist in the movement of the leader and pastor Martin Luther King, Marguerite Johnson, her first name, wrote extensively about life in the southern United States, a region historically marked by racial segregation and where she is originally from.