Group lobbies for former slave Harriet Tubman to be on the $20 bill
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A group lobbying to get the portrait of a woman on the $20 bill has presented the White House with a petition bearing the name of a former slave, who also led dozens of other slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad: Harriet Tubman.
If successful, Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson.
"Our paper bills are like pocket monuments to great figures in our history," said Susan Ades Stone executive director of the grassroots organization Women on 20s.
The non-profit initially provided a list of 15 women for consideration and more than 600,000 ultimately voted.
Tubman, an abolitionist who later became a Union spy, was one of four finalists.
The others were Rosa Parks, who sparked the beginning of the modern civil rights movement; former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt; and Wilma Mankiller, the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation.
Although President Obama is being lobbied, any decision to change currency would come down to the Treasury Department.
Tubman would be the first African-American on U.S. currency and only the second woman. Martha Washington appeared on the $1 Silver Certificate in 1886, 1891 and 1896.
“Our work won’t be done until we’re holding a Harriet $20 bill in our hands in time for the centennial of women’s suffrage in 2020,” Stone said.
To read the full story, go to myajc.com.
About the Author
Ernie Suggs is an enterprise reporter covering race and culture for the AJC since 1997. A 1990 graduate of N.C. Central University and a 2009 Harvard University Nieman Fellow, he is also the former vice president of the National Association of Black Journalists. His obsession with Prince, Spike Lee movies, Hamilton and the New York Yankees is odd.
