However, it was just revealed that Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew has had a change of heart and Tubman will, in fact, replace Andrew Jackson on the coveted $20 bill.
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Harriet Tubman, an African-American abolitionist who was born a slave, will stand with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin as among the iconic faces of US currency. Miranda put pressure on Lew to keep Hamilton on the front of the bill, and Tweeted about a one-on-one meeting they had last month.
The Obama administration had earlier announced plans to put a woman on the $10 bill, but the renewed interest in Hamilton, the nation’s first treasury secretary, pushed the government to abandon that idea and instead target the $20 bill for a redesign. But it said it would not be satisfied unless Lew also committed to issuing the new $20 bill at the same time that the redesigned $10 bill is scheduled to be issued in 2020. But she wasn’t automatically cast for a spot on the $20 bill – as the Women on 20s organization hoped for – and had to settle for a tentative spot on the $10 bill, where Alexander Hamilton now sits.
They also argued that the interim plan to have a woman included on the back of the $10 bill is more an insult than a compromise.
The redesigned bills are expected to enter circulation by 2020.
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. This will mark the 100th anniversary of both women’s suffrage and the 19th amendment of the constitution. He said the $10 bill was scheduled to go out first, citing security needs.
Tubman was born a slave about 1822 in Dorchester County, MD, who used the Underground Railroad to escape to freedom in the North in 1849, and then helped others gain their freedom.
“There are so few reminders in our everyday lives of great women who’ve contributed to the shaping of our nation”, said Susan Ades Stone, executive director of Women on 20s. During the Civil War, she was a spy, she was a nurse, she fed the soldiers – she did what everybody needed to be done.
Various groups have been campaigning to get a woman honoured on the nation’s paper currency, which has been an all-male domain for more than a century.
“No, I love Harriet Tubman”, Carson said.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who is campaigning to become the first female US president, praised Tubman as “a woman, a leader, and a freedom fighter” on Twitter and said she could not think of a better choice.
Tubman is the first woman to be featured on United States print money.
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Women have not been depicted on US bills since Martha Washington, who was on the $1 silver certificate from 1891 to 1896, and Pocahontas, who was in a group picture on the $20 bill from 1865 to 1869. Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea are on dollar coins.
