Alabama sometimes has a bad reputation in the rest of the world. Therefore we should note that Alabama chose, as the image to be placed on its commemorative statehood quarter-dollar, a portrait of Helen Keller.
Since her death, Keller has been remembered mostly for achieving fame despite the double-whammy of blindness and deafness.
But during her lifetime, she was widely known as an advocate of racial equality, a prominent Socialist, and a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
In these days, it's kind of reassuring that Alabama has put forward, as its single coin-borne nationwide representative, one of America's most famous left-wing radicals.