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Tubman to Replace Jackson on the $20
The long-awaited move to place a woman on US paper currency is happening:
The Treasury Department will announce on Wednesday afternoon that Harriet Tubman, an African-American who ferried hundreds of slaves to freedom, will replace the slaveholding Andrew Jackson on the center of a new $20 note, according to a Treasury official, while newly popular Alexander Hamilton will remain on the face of the $10 bill.
Other depictions of women and civil rights leaders will also be part of new currency designs.
The new designs, from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, would be made public in 2020 in time for the centennial of woman’s suffrage and the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. None of the bills, including a new $5 note, would reach circulation until the next decade.
It was unclear whether details of the unexpectedly sweeping changes would win over some women’s groups, who had sharply criticized Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew for reneging on his 10-month-old commitment to put a woman on the face of the $10 bill, which is the one currently in line for an anti-counterfeiting makeover.
But in the months of taking public comments on what woman he should pick, Mr. Lew evidently bowed to the Broadway-stoked popularity of the $10 bill’s current star, Alexander Hamilton.
Instead, images of women are expected to grace the back of the new bill, with Ms. Tubman taking the top spot on a redesigned $20 further into the future.
Should Jackson remain? And, if not, do you think Tubman was the best choice?
Published in General
I like it! But anti-gun activists would veto it.
Yes, I am fine with a republican woman replacing a democrat. And she is a hero.
@iowahawkblog on Twitter:
BREAKING: Treasury throws founder of Democratic Party off $20 bill, replaces with gun-toting Republican.
The R.E.D. really doesn’t pay much attention to what gets posted around here, does xe?
;-)
Horrible, just horrible.
Why?
“Come with me if you want to live…”
You know what this means, right? Paper money is on its way out. It took too long, and now it’s too late.
A gun-toting Republican war hero who didn’t dole out government patronage to her cronies.
Forget Trump, that bill design would make America Great Again, no president needed.
Bonus: I get to call them Tubby Twenties and get cash from the Automatic Tubman Machine.
He is being factious as he is a history professor and a lot people have never heard of her.
Too late?
More Tubman badassery:
Republicans should hold her up as a role-model when discussing welfare reform.
a) Considering how prominent she is in annual Black History Month lessons, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if more Americans know who she is than know who Andrew Jackson is.
b) If they don’t know who she is, they should know who she is, because she was a badass gun-toting Republican, and putting her on the money might help educate ’em.
Meanwhile my Facebook friends are expressing approval of the decision entirely on the basis of accidents of Tubman’s birth.
Tubman is a good choice, but I’d prefer a man who thinks he’s a woman.
Don’t educate ’em until after they start printing the notes.
If the Left finds out she was a gun-toting Republican badass before the presses get rolling they might try to get the decision overturned and you’ll end up with Susan B. Anthony or Margaret Sanger on the $20.
if paper money is phased out.
We need to break the habit of revering Presidents and treating them like elected royalty. I say fewer Presidents on the coins and bills and more private citizens is a positive step. Keep Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, the rest are dispensable.
Andrew Jackson not only owned slaves, but he killed a lot of Native Americans by enforcing the Indian Removal Act. Although Alexander Hamilton did sign the Indian Removal Act, he never owned slaves and was an abolitionist. Removing Hamilton would be the equivalent of saying ‘Black lives don’t matter.’ Keep Hamilton. Jackson must go.
The idea of putting Margaret Sanger on the $20 dollar bill was aborted pretty early.
Hamilton was Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury. He didn’t get the chance to run for president because Vice President Aaron Burr shot him dead in duel.
In the 19th century, lots of non-Presidents were put on US currency. Many of ’em were former Treasury Secretaries, but there were also former Veeps, Supreme Court Justices, and other historical figures such as Pocahontas or Lewis & Clark.
Rosa Parks lost out because the bill wouldn’t stay in the back of the wallet.
Affirmative action for currency….the left is never satisfied
Andrew Jackson was the hero of the Battle of New Orleans as well.
That’s the battle that was fought a month after the peace treaty had been signed, is it not?
So, he was on there for a good long time; he got his due. It’s okay to mix it up a little (I think, anyway). Pretty painless, really, given that they used to change the character on the money pretty often. I think we should stick with Harriet—she’s interesting and heroic, and represents self-help and action rather than passive victimhood.
Treaty or no, the Brits were still invading New Orleans. Had they taken it, they might not have given it back, or at least demanded something in exchange.
Yes Hamilton and Franklin should stay as well, I meant all the rest of the Presidents have had their turn and I wouldn’t mind replacing them.
Can’t change Franklin or we’d have to stop calling $100 bills “Benjamins.”