Source: CBS News
Imagine the scene.
You’re in the bank pulling out money for an important cash-only purchase and the teller hands you a stack of bills with Harriet Tubman’s face on every last one.
That’s the dream that the nonprofit group Women on 20s is hoping to make a reality by the year 2020.
After the group conducted a 10-week poll online to see who people most wanted to see replace former President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman emerged as a clear favorite over other top choices that included civil rights icon Rosa Parks and Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Wilma Mankiller.
The poll closed Tuesday with Tubman securing a solid 33.6 percent of the online votes, CBS News reported.
It’s also important to note that other women like former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt were included in the poll, suggesting that there is actually a strong wave of support behind getting a Black woman on U.S. currency.
That’s a pretty powerful statement considering the fact that currency has long had a strong correlation to national culture in any country.
“Our paper bills are like pocket monuments to great figures in our history,” Women on 20s Executive Director Susan Ades Stone told CBS. “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.”
To move its mission forward, the group has sent a petition to the White House urging them to place Tubman’s image on the $20 bill, but President Barack Obama and his administration would have no control over the currency’s new look.
That falls under the powers given to the Treasury Department.
While bills have been created in an attempt to convince the Treasury Department to change the image on the $20 bill to a woman, those bills do not specify an interest in Tubman.
New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen introduced the Women on the Twenty Act in Congress but made it clear that she is open to a variety of different women being placed on the currency. In other words, there would be no guarantee that Tubman would actually be the final choice based on her proposal.
“Our paper currency is an important part of our everyday lives and reflects our values, traditions and history as Americans,” Shaheen said in a public statement. “It’s long overdue for that reflection to include contributions of women.”
She added that she feels there are many women who would make great candidates to take Jackson’s place although she wasn’t opposed to Tubman being that predecessor.
While Obama won’t be able to call any shots regarding putting a woman on the $20 bill, he has expressed his own opinion about the idea.
“Last week, a young girl wrote to me to ask why aren’t there any women on our currency,” the president said back in July before the launch of the Women on 20s voting campaign. “And then she gave me a long list of possible women to put on our dollar bills and quarters and stuff — which I thought was a pretty good idea.”
U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios was interested in the idea but never made a strong statement regarding whether the Treasury Department was taking the suggestion seriously.
“What can I say,” Rios told Fortune. “We’re engaging in a collaborative process to move the discussion forward.”
The massive push for Tubman to be the new face of the $20 bill also comes around the same time that HBO revealed that a Tubman biopic is in the works that is slated to feature Viola Davis as its star.
