Biden Administration Plans To Put Harriet Tubman On $20 Bill

President Barack Obama announced efforts to replace President Andrew Jackson with abolitionist figure Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill during his administration. Now President Joe Biden has said that he hopes to continue with the Obama-era plan.

“The Treasury Department is taking steps to resume efforts to put Harriet Tubman on the front of the new $20 notes,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in an address Monday.

Obama announced plans to add Tubman to the $20 bill in his second term, but his efforts were stopped during the Donald Trump‘s presidency, who derided the move as “politically correct.”

Treasury Secretary under Donald Trump, Steve Mnuchin, said the Tubman project would be halted indefinitely. He later said Tubman may be printed on new $2 bills.

The change from Jackson to Tubman was originally to be implemented in 2019, the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States. On the 2016 campaign trail, Trump showed an affinity for Jackson, the slave owner and orchestrator of the Trail of Tears that led the deaths of thousands of Native Americans, and called the action to remove him from the front of the $20 as “pure political correctness.”

In her statement Monday, Psaki countered that America’s currency should “reflect the history and diversity of our country, and Harriet Tubman’s image gracing the new $20 note would certainly reflect that.”

Article by Brandon Mumei