Harriet Tubman $20 Bill

Overview

Harriet Tubman $20 Dollar Bill refers to a movement to replace the seventh President of the United States Andrew Jackson on the front of the United States $20 dollar bill with African-American abolitionist and Union spy Harriet Tubman, known for being a central figure in the network of antislavery activists known as the Underground Railroad.

Background

In February 2015, the organization Women On 20s^[5] launched an online poll to vote for various women to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 dollar bill in celebration of the upcoming 100-year anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which granted women the right to vote in 1920. The $20 bill was selected due to the anniversary being held on the year 2020. On May 12th, Women On 20s revealed that Harriet Tubman had won the online poll, and started a campaign to urge President Obama to support replacing Jackson on $20 bills. The YouTube videos are no longer available.

Developments

Official Announcement

On April 20th, 2016, the United States Treasury Secretary Jack Lew revealed that Tubman would replace President Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 dollar bill. In an interview with PBS NewHour, Lew revealed that the decision was influenced by public discussions about the change on social media (shown below).

Online Reaction

That day, The Young Turks YouTube channel posted a video discussing the announcement (shown below, left). Meanwhile, MSNBC aired an interview Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who referred suggested Tubman be added to a different denomination and referred to the change as "pure political correctness" (shown below, right).

Meanwhile, several posts about the announcement reached the front page of various subreddits, including /r/news,^[2] /r/explainlikeimfive,^[3] /r/atheism^[1] and /r.TwoXChromosomes.^[4] Additionally, several threads about the change were posted on various 4chan boards, including /pol/^[6] and /s4s/.^[7]

News Media Coverage

In the days after the announcement, several news sites reported on the currency change, including NPR,^[8] NBC News,^[9] The Washington Post,^[10] ABC News,^[11] BBC,^[12] The Huffington Post^[13] and The New York Times.^[14]

2019 Delay and Design

On May 22nd, 2019, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced that the Tubman bill would be delayed until 2026. On June 14th, The New York Times published an article titled "See a Design of the Harriet Tubman $20 Bill That Mnuchin Delayed," which featured a design for the bill created by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (shown below).

The same day, Twitter user @alex3nglish^[15] reposted the image of the design along with the joke "how can i buy weed comfortably when she’s looking at me like this" (shown below). Meanwhile, a screenshot of the tweet reached the front page of /r/BlackPeopleTwitter,^[16] where it received more than 620 points (99% upvoted) and 30 comments with three hours.

Search Interest

External References