Biden Administration Revives Effort to Put Harriet Tubman on the $20 Bill

Move over, Andrew Jackson.

Mother Jones; Getty

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The Biden administration will resume efforts to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced today.

“It’s important that our notes…reflect the history and diversity of our country,” Psaki said at a press conference, “and Harriet Tubman’s image gracing the new $20 note would certainly reflect that.”

The decision to replace former President Andrew Jackson with abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman has been controversial since former President Obama’s Treasury Secretary Jack Lew spearheaded the effort in 2016. While it’s unclear to what extent Steve Mnuchin, who served as secretary of the Treasury under President Trump, derailed the process for getting a Tubman currency into circulation, it’s fair to say the Trump administration was not enthusiastic. In 2016, Trump called the currency swap “pure political correctness” and praised Jackson’s “great history.”

Jackson, a slaveholder and anti-abolitionist, is famous for forcibly driving tens of thousands of Native Americans from their lands in the southeastern United States in a brutal voyage known as the Trail of Tears.

Tubman had a very different life story: After escaping slavery in 1849, she guided about 70 people to freedom through the Underground Railroad.

The new bill is likely to enter circulation in the latter half of the decade.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate