Maya Angelou, the African American poetess on a US currency

It’s a quarter of a dollar, but it’s worth a lot more. On the new US currency is the image of the African American poet and activist Maya Angelou: the 25 cent coin is the most used coin in the USA. The effigy of the poetess who recited her lines in Bill Clinton’s inaugural ceremony is the first in a series that will celebrate illustrious American women of various origins.

This series of coins was born thanks to a vote in Congress at the end of 2020, on the proposal of the California Democratic Congressman Barbara Lee. After Maya Angelou there will be the astronaut and physicist Sally Ridem Wilma Mankiller, Native American, Hispanic politics Nina Otero-Warrren, and the actress Anna May Wong, first Hollywood star of Asian descent. On the other side of the coin there will always be George Washington, the first American president. The coins will be minted between now and 2025.

The poet was born in St. Louis in 1928 and died in 2014 at the age of 86. President Obama had awarded her the Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor. Among his most famous writings I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, I know why the caged bird sings. his biography is at the center of his work. She tells about her life up to 17 years old, a life marked by poverty, precarious jobs and on the verge of legality, and the violence suffered, when she was still a child, by her mother’s partner, then beaten to death by her uncles. After that event she hadn’t spoken for 5 years. “I thought I caused her death because I mentioned her name to my familyHe wrote. He then decided that the power of his voice was to be used against the injustices of society. He fought discrimination alongside Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.

“Every time we redesign our currency,” he said Janet Yellen, US Treasury Secretary, «we have the opportunity to say something about our country, on the values ​​that matter to us and on the progress we have made as a company. I am very proud of these coins which celebrate the contribution of some of the most noteworthy women in our country ”.