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.
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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.
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