President Biden's administration confirmed that they will be moving forward with an Obama-era plan to boot Andrew Jackson off the $20 bill and replace him with slavery abolitionist, Harriet Tubman
President Biden's administration confirmed that they will be moving forward with an Obama-era plan to boot Andrew Jackson off the $20 bill and replace him with slavery abolitionist, Harriet Tubman.
"The Treasury Department is taking steps to resume efforts to put Harriet Tubman on the new twenty-dollar notes," Jen Psaki, Biden's press secretary told reporters Monday during a White House briefing. "It's important that the notes reflect the history of our country and Harriet Tubman's image gracing the note would certainly reflect that. So we're exploring ways to speed up that effort."
Psaki also mentioned that she was around when Obama's administration was working on the historic move.
"I was here when we announced that," she said. "It was very exciting."
Psaki added that any specifics would come from directly from the Department of Treasury.
Former President Barack Obama and the Department of Treasury in 2016 vowed to swap President Andrew Jackson's face on the paper currency and replace it with Tubman, but the efforts were stalled under the Trump administration.
Then, in 2019, on the centennial celebration of the women's suffrage movement, which paved the way to the 19th Amendment, granting a women's right to vote, Trump's administration claimed "technical issues" would delay the efforts until 2028, CNBC previously reported. Trump also called the effort "pure political correctness," the New York Times reported.
Jackson was a former slave owner, owning an estimated fourteen slaves –– eight women and six men, according to the 1830 census cited by the White House. Tubman, a Black woman and slavery abolitionist, was a Union spy during the Civil War who most notably helped slaves escape through the Underground Railroad, according to the Times.
"Andrew Jackson had a great history, and I think it's very rough when you take somebody off the bill," Trump previously said, the outlet reported.
If the move is approved, Tubman would be the first Black person to be featured on a U.S. paper currency. The only other woman to be honored on the face of a paper note was Martha Washington, who was featured on the $1 silver certificate in the late 19th century, the Times reported.
RELATED STORIES
