Reserve Bank honours women with new R2 coins

The South African Reserve Bank (Sarb) has launched two commemorative circulation coins honouring defining moments in South Africa’s history involving women.

The coins commemorate 125 years since Charlotte Mannya-Maxeke became the first black South African woman to graduate with a university degree and 70 years since the historic 1956 Women’s March against apartheid pass laws.

The R2 coins form part of the Milestones of Freedom programme, launched by President Cyril Ramaphosa in June 2026 under the theme “Honouring the past, delivering the future”.

Speaking at the launch in Pretoria this week, Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago said the coins honour a history of “courage, service, defiance and duty” to the country.

Kganyago said while central banks issue currency for practical purposes, money also carries public meaning.

“It is one of the ways in which a nation tells the world who it represents, what it stands for and what it remembers,” he said.

One coin honours Maxeke, whose graduation in 1901, when she obtained a BSc from Wilberforce University in the US, marked a significant milestone for black women in South Africa.

“For a black woman at that time, access to higher education was not simply limited; it was almost unimaginable,” Kganyago said. “It was not only a personal milestone; it was a direct act of defiance against the limits the authorities and society of her time had placed on black people, and on black women in particular.”

Maxeke used her education and influence to serve her community and expand opportunities for African women.

In 1918, she founded and became the first president of the Bantu Women’s League, which mobilised African women against pass laws and confronted the government of then prime minister Louis Botha. She also campaigned against low wages and participated in the formation of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union in 1920.

On August 9 1956 more than 20,000 women marched to the Union Buildings to protest against the extension of pass laws.

The R2 coin commemorating this depicts four women from different cultural backgrounds positioned in the foreground, holding placards and facing the Union Buildings.

Kganyago said the march demonstrated women were central to the struggle for democracy.

“Women were not spectators in the making of a democratic South Africa. They were organisers. They were leaders. They were politically astute. They were agents of change,” he said.

He said while some women who participated in the struggle are well known, many others have not been adequately recorded in history.

Kganyago said the coins were intended to address the imbalance in how women’s contributions have been remembered.

“By placing Charlotte Maxeke and the women of 1956 on our circulation coins, we affirm women’s contributions are central to the story of South Africa.”

The governor highlighted the continuing importance of access to education for women.

He said in 1996, almost a century after Maxeke’s graduation, only 6.7% of women in South Africa had obtained a tertiary qualification. By 2022, that figure was at 13.1%.

Kganyago said he hoped the coins would inspire a new generation of women leaders, including young women who encounter them in everyday life.

“We look forward to hearing more stories of the contributions of women in building our nation as the coins are passed on in households, shops, taxis, schools and workplaces,” he said.

In June, the Sarb released a R2 coin celebrating pupils who protested against education policies in 1976. Later this year, a coin will be released to mark 30 years since the Constitution was signed into law.

Kganyago thanked the South African Mint Company and the Sarb’s currency management department for their role in bringing the commemorative coins into circulation.