Harriet Tubman will be joining the $20 bill. HArriet was a black woman who escaped slavery to become a conductor on the Underground Railroad, risking her life to lead slaves to freedom.
She will be replacing President Andrew Jackson, the son of Scots-Irish immigrants and owner of slaves, was elected president as a war hero and became known for policies that led to the deaths of countless Native Americans.
On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said Tubman would replace Jackson on the front of the $20 bill, becoming the first woman in more than a century and first African American to grace the front of a paper note. Jackson will be featured on the back of the bill alongside an image of the White House.
In another twist, Alexander Hamilton got a reprieve. Initially targeted for replacement by a woman on the $10 bill, Hamilton’s reputation was burnished by an unlikely smash Broadway play and his case pressed by outraged historians pointing to his seminal role in creating the nation’s first central bank.
Treasury’s announcement followed almost a year of heated public debate.
With Hamilton’s position secure, and with the Obama administration under pressure to add diversity to the currency, Lew’s compromise is to replace a picture of the Treasury building on the back of the $10 with leaders of the suffrage movement — Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul and Lucretia Mott.
My two-cents: So why couldn’t Harriet get her own bill … #IJS
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