Harriet Tubman will replace President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill when it is redesigned, the Treasury Department announced Wednesday. Jackson, who was a slaveholder, will move to the back of the bill.
The redesign will be unveiled in 2020, and the department also announced changes to the $10 bill and $5 bill to reflect civil rights. It will be the first change to the presidents and Founding Fathers reflected on U.S. money since 1928,
The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Los Angeles Times reported that, "The last time a woman was on a paper note was in the late 1800s, when First Lady Martha Washington appeared on the $1 silver certificate. Pocahontas was on the $20 bill from 1865 to 1869."
“Our money is catching up with our history,” Georgetown University historian Michael Kazin told The Journal. “It’s a recognition that the country has changed.”
Tubman, an escaped slave and Union spy during the Civil War, is lauded for her daring efforts to rescue slaves via the famous Underground Railroad.
Jackson, a Democrat and America’s 7th president, has been criticized for his slave ownership and persecution of Native Americans via the Trail of Tears.
Wednesday’s announcement comes after months of discussion and speculation, with Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew backtracking a previous decision to put a woman on the front of the $10 bill,
The New York Times noted.
Alexander Hamilton will remain on the front of the $10 bill and Abraham Lincoln on the $5 bill, with images of women and historical civil rights events added to the backs of those currencies.
The $10 bill will feature images of a 1913 march for women’s suffrage along with leaders Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, and Susan B. Anthony. The $5 bill will feature the 1939 performance of African-American singer Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial along with images of Eleanor Roosevelt and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“It is just absolutely beautiful to replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman, because where Jackson represented the worst side of American history, Tubman represents the best ideals of American democracy,” University of Buffalo professor Kari Winter told The Washington Post. “She really represents the highest ideals of community, working for the common good, thinking about others beside yourself, risking everything for justice.”
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump criticized the decision, calling it “pure political correctness,”
NBC News reported.
Meanwhile Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton tweeted her support of the decision.
Twitter users had a lot to say about the change.
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