The changes were announced Wednesday by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew as part of a historic overhaul of USA currency aimed at addressing America’s legacy of slavery and gender inequality.
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The $10 bill will feature images of a 1913 march for women’s suffrage along with leaders Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, and Susan B. Anthony. “I can not think of an American hero more deserving of this honor than Harriet Tubman”, he tweeted.
“It is the essential story of American democracy about how one person… could change the course of history”, Lew declared, explaining how his department chose Tubman over other candidates amid a groundswell of popular demand for women on our currency. The other side of the bill will still have Andrew Jackson’s portrait on the redesigned $20 dollar bill.
Harriet Tubman, an African-American abolitionist born into slavery, will be the new face on the $20 bill. She’s only the second woman to be featured on a USA bill – the first briefly being Martha Washington more than a century ago – as well as the first African American.
The plan originally was to revamp the US$10 note in 2020, possibly having a woman share it with Hamilton, while the US$20 bill, one of the world’s most circulated banknotes, would wait another decade for redesign.
So Harriet Tubman gets the front of the $20, where she belongs.
The new image on the $5 bill will include civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who gave his famous “I have a dream” speech on the steps of the memorial in 1963, and Marian Anderson and Eleanor Roosevelt. During the Civil War, she guided a team of Union scouts operating in the marshlands near present-day Beaufort, South Carolina.
The business mogul heaped praise on Jackson, whose presence on the $20 bill was criticized due to his history as a slave-owner and his dismal record on Native American and racial issues, epitomized by the Jackson administration’s infamous “Trail of Tears” policy that forcibly relocated the Cherokee people to devastating effect.
The face of Alexander Hamilton will remain on the $10, after objections from Hamilton’s fans.
Before Tubman, only the Sacagawea $1 coin, the Susan B. Anthony $1 coin and the 2003 Alabama quarter (which has Helen Keller on the back) featured women.
“You all know I’m a feminist, love to see women acknowledged for the great things they do to contribute to our nation, and Harriet Tubman did, and she deserves it”, said Van Susteran. We could use a $25 bill.
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump criticized the decision, calling it “pure political correctness”, NBC News reported. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, the first woman to head the central bank, said she welcomed the decision to honor the achievements of women in American history. Harriet Tubman was on her list.
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I also like the fact that Tubman is both black and a woman, two characteristics that we have in common.
