As of yesterday, the U.S. Department of Treasury officially decided to break up the 120-year sausage fest that is American currency.
Famed freedom fighter and abolitionist Harriet Tubman will replace President Andrew Jackson, a famed racist and slaveowner, on the front of the $20 bill. President Jackson will remain on the back of the bill.
Tubman, who was initially supposed to replace Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, has since been moved to the $20 bill after complaints surfaced from the impassioned fans of the critically acclaimed Broadway musical “Hamilton.”
The back of the $10 bill will now feature leaders of the women’s suffrage movement, while five-dollar bills will be redesigned to depict leaders of the civil rights movement – part of a broader effort to accurately reflect the history of our country.
“Democracy is the theme for the next redesigned series of U.S. notes. Images that capture this theme will be featured on the new $10 bill,” said Treasury Secretary Jack Lew in a video statement released last June.
Getting with the times
The new changes have been a long time coming.
Women on 20s, an advocacy group working specifically to get a woman on the $20 bill, has been actively campaigning for female representation on U.S. currency for over a year, even hosting a nationwide poll to select the lucky female American hero.
The 10-week online poll found Harriet Tubman to be the winner, beating out fellow female leaders Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks and Wilma Mankiller with 118,328 of the 352,431 votes, or 33.6 percent. The group aims to have the bill redesigned and printed by the year 2020 – just in time for the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment.
“We are gratified to have sparked a conversation about the symbols and historical figures that define us as a nation,” reads a statement on the Women on 20s’ website.
“We are heartened that Secretary Lew, U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios and Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen are committed to including women in the portrait gallery of paper currency in the near future.”
Too little too late?
Despite resounding praise, the decision has nonetheless sparked controversy.
Some believe that President Jackson, who was a well-known slave owner, advocate of Native American genocide and a fierce opponent of paper money, has no place on American currency at all.
“Jackson was the only president who worked as a slave trader, and he accumulated much of his fortune that way. In fact, Jackson later pursued his ‘Indian Removal’ policies specifically so that the stolen lands could be used to expand cotton farming and slavery,” writes Jillian Keenan in a Slate op-ed from 2014 – well before talks of a currency makeover had even started.
“His face on our money implies an honor that Jackson’s legacy doesn’t deserve. Worse, it obscures the horrors of his presidency.”
Others feel that Tubman’s face on a $20 bill simply isn’t enough. Considering the lack of national memorials and public statues honoring women in the United States, some think the $20 bill move is too little too late.
“A woman is going to be featured on the front of a single bill out of seven in U.S. currency, which hardly seems representative,” writes the Daily Worth’s Margo Thiery.
“If anything, this change is a reminder of just how far we have to go in the battle for equality for all Americans, across intersections of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, and ability.”
Let the haters roll in…
There’s also camp “anti-Tubman,” who believe that replacing Andrew Jackson’s face on the $20 bill is “stupid,” according to Fox News host Greta Van Susteren.
Van Susteren contends that the change is stirring an “unnecessary fight” across the country, one that she obviously wants no part in.
“What I don’t get is this: Rather than dividing the country between those who happen to like the tradition of our currency and want President Andrew Jackson to stay put and those who want to put a woman on a bill — it’s so easy to make everyone happy,” said Van Susteren.
Former Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson also chimed in, contending that Tubman’s face is worthy of a $2, but not a $20 bill.
“Andrew Jackson was the last president who actually balanced the federal budget, where we had no national debt,” said Carson in a Wednesday night interview with Neil Cavuto on Cavuto Coast to Coast. “I love what [Harriet Tubman] did. But we can find another way to honor her. Maybe a $2 bill.”
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