The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced Wednesday that Harriet Tubman, a former slave who escorted hundreds of other slaves to freedom, will replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. It’s an encouraging step in a movement that gained traction with Women on 20s, a nonprofit advocating for redesigning U.S. currency to include women on the $20 bill. You can read their reaction to the Treasury’s announcement on their site.
Symbols matter, and we’re thrilled to see Tubman–a fierce champion of racial and gender equality–on the $20 bill, as well as the movement for women’s suffrage in the United States on the $10 bill.
bloomberg.com – Abolitionist Harriet Tubman will appear on front of the $20 bill, replacing former President Andrew Jackson and becoming the first woman featured on U.S. paper currency in modern times, a Treasury official said, in a design overhaul that will leave Alexander Hamilton on the $10 note.
The decision is the latest chapter in a 10-month-old controversy that erupted after Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew tried to address gender imbalance on U.S. currency notes. He opened up the selection process to the public just as the current face on the $10 bill was enjoying a resurgence in popularity, and outrage ensued.
The move Lew is announcing Wednesday is intended as a way to thread the needle between women’s groups who have been advocating for gender diversity on U.S. currency and fans of Hamilton, including Lin-Manuel Miranda, the playwright and star of the hit Broadway musical about the nation’s first Treasury secretary. Miranda lobbied Lew to keep Hamilton on the $10 when he visited Washington last month.
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