Tubman to be new face of US$20 bill, Hamilton stays on US$10

[webfact]

Tubman to be new face of $20 bill, Hamilton stays on $10
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Harriet Tubman, an African-American abolitionist who was born a slave, will stand with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin among the iconic faces of U.S. currency.

The $20 bill will be redesigned with Tubman's portrait on the front, marking two historic milestones, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew announced Wednesday. Tubman will become the first African-American on U.S. paper money and the first woman to be depicted on currency in 100 years.

The leader of the Underground Railroad will replace the portrait of Andrew Jackson, the nation's seventh president and a slave owner, who will be pushed to the back of the bill.

Lew also settled a backlash that had erupted after he had announced an initial plan to remove Alexander Hamilton, the nation's first Treasury secretary, from the $10 bill in order to honor a woman on the bill.

Hamilton will remain on the $10 note, Lew said. Instead, the Treasury building on the back of the bill will be changed to commemorate a 1913 march that ended on the steps of the Treasury building that featured suffragette leaders Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Paul.

The back of the $20, which now shows the White House, will be redesigned to include the White House and Jackson, whose statute stands across the street in Lafayette Park.

The $5 bill will also undergo change: The illustration of the Lincoln Memorial on the back will be redesigned to honor "events at the Lincoln Memorial that helped to shape our history and our democracy."

The new image on the $5 bill will include civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who gave his famous "I have a dream" speech on the steps of the memorial in 1963 and Marian Anderson and Eleanor Roosevelt. Anderson, an African-American opera singer, gave a concert at the memorial in 1939 after she had been blocked from singing at the then-segregated Constitution Hall. The Lincoln Memorial concert was arranged by Mrs. Roosevelt.

An online group, Women on 20s, said it was encouraged that Lew was responding to its campaign to replace Jackson with a woman. But it said it wouldn't be satisfied unless Lew committed to issuing the new $20 bill at the same time that the redesigned $10 bill is scheduled to be issued in 2020.

Lew didn't go that far Wednesday. But he pledged that at least the designs for all three bills will be accelerated so they'll be finished by 2020 — the 100th anniversary of passage of the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote. He said the new notes will go into circulation as fast as possible after that, consistent with the need to incorporate new anti-counterfeiting measures in the designs.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, the first woman to head the central bank, said she welcomed the decision to honor the achievements of women in American history. She said the Fed would work closely with Treasury to get the new bills developed and into circulation.

U.S. currency has undergone upgrades over the years to stay ahead of counterfeiters. But the updates proposed by Lew for the three bills would be the most sweeping changes since 1929, when all U.S. paper money was redesigned to feature more standard designs and a smaller size to save printing costs.

Lew had initially selected the $10 bill to feature a woman because under the original timetable it was the next bill to be redesigned. But that proposal met fierce objections from supporters of Hamilton, who is enjoying renewed popular interest with the smash Broadway hit musical "Hamilton."

Tubman, who was born into slavery in the early part of the 19th century, escaped and then used the network of anti-slavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad to transport other slaves to freedom. After the Civil War, Tubman, who died in 1913, became active in the campaign for women's suffrage.

Numerous groups have been campaigning to have a woman honored on the nation's paper currency, which has been an all-male domain for more than a century.

Amrita Myers, a historian at Indiana University, said honoring Tubman was appropriate.

"Not only is this going to be the first African-American historical figure on U.S. currency, but it's a woman specifically from the era of slavery," Myers said.

Wednesday's announcement helped mark a decades-long decline in the reputation of Jackson, once a pillar of the modern Democratic Party but now often defined by his ownership of slaves and the "Trail of Tears" saga that forcibly removed American Indians from their land.

"Jackson at one time was mainly known as the champion of democracy and the defender of the union and the champion of the common man against aggregated wealth and bankers," said Daniel Feller, a history professor at the University of Tennessee and director of Jackson's papers.

The last woman featured on U.S. paper money was Martha Washington, who was on a dollar silver certificate from 1891 to 1896. The only other woman ever featured on U.S. paper money was Pocahontas, from 1865 to 1869. Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea are on dollar coins.
___

Associated Press reporters Hillel Italie in New York and Errin Haines Whack in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

-- (c) Associated Press 2016-04-21

[kamahele]

Cool!

[helpisgood]

It seems odd to take Hamilton off the currency considering his great contributions to the early American economy. As great as Washington and Lincoln may have been, it was Hamilton that started the new US economy and its currency off the ground after the serious economic problems caused by the American War for Independence. Thus, I think that Lincoln and Washington well-deserved their monuments, but Hamilton is the first choice for appearing on US currency.

Tubman, it seems to me, to be a great choice. That's not only because there would finally be a woman on the currency, but she was an African-American abolitionist. Slavery is surely a very ugly chapter in US history. Tubman did some work on women's suffrage as well. It would be good to say that people, other than white guys, made great contributions to the USA.

As for Jackson, I personally cannot help to recall how he defied a US Supreme Court ruling and was thus responsible for that Native American relocation of the "Civilized Tribes" known as the Trail of Tears, which was more of a death march resulting in an estimated few thousand deaths (Jackson's successor, Van Buren, was also involved). I understand that he was under some political pressure from white folks who wanted the gold that had been found in the seized land. On the other hand, what do we say about FDR and the Japanese-American relocation? Plus, Jackson did have his finer hours, e.g., the Nullification Crisis.

Nevertheless, I think Tubman appearing on the twenty-dollar bill instead of Jackson sends a better message.

Edited April 21, 2016 by helpisgood

[timendres]

I have always disliked the placement of persons on our currency. It is inevitably political in it's nature.

I would prefer symbols of American Ideals like the most recent passports - the flag, the eagle, the constitution, liberty bell, etc.

And besides, most of those people are not very attractive

Edited April 21, 2016 by timendres

[helpisgood]

I have always disliked the placement of persons on our currency. It is inevitably political in it's nature.

I would prefer symbols of American Ideals like the most recent passports - the flag, the eagle, the constitution, liberty bell, etc.

And besides, most of those people are not very attractive

I know what you mean about their looks. If only Marilyn Monroe had won a Nobel Prize for Peace or something like that.

[Rancid]

Hmm, Jackson certainly did some unconscionable things regarding slavery and native Americans.

However where he stood out was fighting the setting up of thieving central banks to rob the economy. Many believe the attempts on his life were directed by said bankers.

The irony is of course the banksters finally got rid of the picture of the guy, that fought them tooth and nail, from the currency.

[Jingthing]

Happy it's not REAGAN!

In this image she comes off rather gender ambiguous.

Edited April 21, 2016 by Jingthing

[TooPoopedToPop]

Happy it's not REAGAN!

In this image she comes off rather gender ambiguous.

tubman.jpg

Changing times.

Live with it.

It could have been Pee Wee Herman.

[ggt]

Pee Wee Herman will replace the face of the $2 dollar bill...yet somehow life goes on...

[Jingthing]

Happy it's not REAGAN!

In this image she comes off rather gender ambiguous.

tubman.jpg

Changing times.

Live with it.

It could have been Pee Wee Herman.

I don't have any problem with it.

[bubba1]

New toilet paper?

[IAMHERE]

Would have been much better to just issue a $1,000 bill with the black concerns.

Would have been much better to just issue a $500 bill for the women concerns.

Or vice versus.

The value of the dollar has diminished enough that we need these new bills.

[Jingthing]

Would have been much better to just issue a $1,000 bill with the black concerns.

Would have been much better to just issue a $500 bill for the women concerns.

Or vice versus.

The value of the dollar has diminished enough that we need these new bills.

That's ridiculous.

BTW, I had to look up two dollar bills to check if they are still in circulation. They are. Barely.

Edited April 21, 2016 by Jingthing

[VillageIdiot]

Would have been much better to just issue a $1,000 bill with the black concerns.

Would have been much better to just issue a $500 bill for the women concerns.

Or vice versus.

The value of the dollar has diminished enough that we need these new bills.

Capital idea.

New denominations for our new cultural icons.

Let the old ones fade away gradually... no need to dethrone them abruptly.

[Kaalle]

I have always disliked the placement of persons on our currency. It is inevitably political in it's nature.

I would prefer symbols of American Ideals like the most recent passports - the flag, the eagle, the constitution, liberty bell, etc.

And besides, most of those people are not very attractive

Like a machine gun and a cheeseburger perhaps?

[Chicog]

You could put Prince on it now he's dead.

[dhream]

Happy it's not REAGAN!

In this image she comes off rather gender ambiguous.

tubman.jpg

Changing times.

Live with it.

It could have been Pee Wee Herman.

I don't have any problem with it.

Pee Wee Herman is OK with me.

A guy rubs one out in a cinema and suddenly he's as popular as Ted Cruz, no, wait, something wrong with that somehow... Ted Cruz I mean.

[new2here]

I like this idea. I do agree that putting people on the currency does open the door to political debate, but I think even if it were places or such, that would not exclude the possibility of politically-originated disagreement. I also think she's a worthy candidate. It is changing times, and I am good with that. I think it's positive that the currency reflects the country and recognizes that its not a static entity.

[bassman]

Andrew Jackson is a great American hero. He lived in a different time and era than now. He was a slave owner and a hard man, but he also saved America in the war of 1812 at the battle of New Orleans. You know, the battle which inspired the song with the lyrics of "they ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch, down the Missisip to the Gulf of Mexico" and ended the UK invasion of the USA.

Harriet Tubman is also a great American hero and is deserving of the recognition, period.

History needs to include bad doings about leaders but history is a learning process and America as well as most of the world have come a long way since the 1820's. Don't judge Jackson in 1820 in relationship to the PC world we have become today.

[Andreas2]

Sorry to inform you, that the treasury cancelled the replacement of the $20 bill - I'm very disappointed, too.

Just hours after announcing that civil rights pioneer Harriet Tubman would replace Pres. Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, the Treasury Department canceled the project after realizing it no longer has any money.

Full article here: Treasury out of money, cancels Tubman on the $20

[DeaconJohn]

Happy it's not REAGAN!

In this image she comes off rather gender ambiguous.

tubman.jpg

Agreed, it is rather gender ambiguous.

There is an alternate version with a turban that might be used.

Although it has been criticized as looking too much like Aunt Jemima after producing a bad batch of pancakes.

[SheungWan]

Andrew Jackson is a great American hero. He lived in a different time and era than now. He was a slave owner and a hard man, but he also saved America in the war of 1812 at the battle of New Orleans. You know, the battle which inspired the song with the lyrics of "they ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch, down the Missisip to the Gulf of Mexico" and ended the UK invasion of the USA.

Harriet Tubman is also a great American hero and is deserving of the recognition, period.

History needs to include bad doings about leaders but history is a learning process and America as well as most of the world have come a long way since the 1820's. Don't judge Jackson in 1820 in relationship to the PC world we have become today.

'....ended the UK invasion of the USA' How weird a commentary is that? One shudders where that was picked up.

[Jingthing]

I read there are earlier life images of Tubman where she looks much more militant. So there is going to be controversy about which type of image to use. Anyway, I like the idea of putting Tubman on money. It represents the best kind of American values ... not being perfect (slavery period) but always fighting and evolving to be better.

[copa8]

It's all about da Tubmans!

[Saastrajaa]

Sorry to inform you, that the treasury cancelled the replacement of the $20 bill - I'm very disappointed, too.

Just hours after announcing that civil rights pioneer Harriet Tubman would replace Pres. Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, the Treasury Department canceled the project after realizing it no longer has any money.

Full article here: Treasury out of money, cancels Tubman on the $20

Take your racist bullshit elsewhere.

[timendres]

Sorry to inform you, that the treasury cancelled the replacement of the $20 bill - I'm very disappointed, too.

Just hours after announcing that civil rights pioneer Harriet Tubman would replace Pres. Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, the Treasury Department canceled the project after realizing it no longer has any money.

Full article here: Treasury out of money, cancels Tubman on the $20

Take your racist bullshit elsewhere.

Racist? Where are you seeing racism in that obvious satire, which appears to do nothing but slam the US government and mock the US Treasury?

[helpisgood]

Someone found this for me. It's a "liberal redneck" comparing Jackson with Tubman. I learned a little history from him.

[copa8]

Sorry to inform you, that the treasury cancelled the replacement of the $20 bill - I'm very disappointed, too.

Just hours after announcing that civil rights pioneer Harriet Tubman would replace Pres. Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, the Treasury Department canceled the project after realizing it no longer has any money.

Full article here: Treasury out of money, cancels Tubman on the $20

Take your racist bullshit elsewhere.

Racist? Where are you seeing racism in that obvious satire, which appears to do nothing but slam the US government and mock the US Treasury?

Don't you know by now? Anything about blacks that has even a hint of negativity will be viewed as racism.

[VillageIdiot]

Sorry to inform you, that the treasury cancelled the replacement of the $20 bill - I'm very disappointed, too.

Just hours after announcing that civil rights pioneer Harriet Tubman would replace Pres. Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, the Treasury Department canceled the project after realizing it no longer has any money.

Full article here: Treasury out of money, cancels Tubman on the $20

Take your racist bullshit elsewhere.

Racist? Where are you seeing racism in that obvious satire, which appears to do nothing but slam the US government and mock the US Treasury?

Don't you know by now? Anything about blacks that has even a hint of negativity will be viewed as racism.

Agreed.

The race card has been overplayed to the point where race relations in the US have descended from tragedy into farce.

This topic is a good example of that.

[impulse]

Pee Wee Herman will replace the face of the $2 dollar bill...yet somehow life goes on...

I heard he got the $3 bill.