Civil Rights Icon Harriet Tubman Will Replace Slave-Owning Andrew Jackson On New $20 Bill
The $20 bill will be getting a much needed and long overdue facelift, scrapping a slave-owning seventh president, Andrew Jackson, and replacing him with the image of trailblazing civil rights icon and abolitionist, Harriet Tubman.
The change comes at the behest of Treasury Department and Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew, who had originally proposed a change to the $10 note, but due to the success of the Hamilton broadway production, opted instead to free the $20 bill of the painfully inappropriate bust of Andrew Jackson, who not only owned slaves, but was an active proponent of Manifest Destiny, which claimed hundreds of thousands of Native Americans live in the name of American entitlement. As the New York Times notes, none of the redesigned bills (a $5 note is also planned) will be entering circulation until 2020, which would also celebrate the centennial anniversary of women's suffrage and the inclusion of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, but it should go without saying just how momentous this gesture is, though we will have to wait and see if the Treasury Department follows through with its promise.
h/t New York Times