U.S. Treasury Backs Away from Plan for Harriet Tubman on $20 Bill Next Year
Makini Brice, Reuters, May 23, 2019
The U.S. Treasury will not introduce a redesigned $20 bill picturing escaped slave and abolitionist Harriet Tubman next year as planned, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday.
In 2016, the Treasury Department said it would replace former President Andrew Jackson’s image on the front of the bill with that of Tubman by 2020, along with redesigns of the $5 and $10 bill.
President Donald Trump has called the inclusion of Tubman on the $20 bill an example of “pure political correctness.”
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Mnuchin said during a hearing with the House Financial Services committee he was focused on redesigning the bills to address counterfeiting issues, not making any changes to their imagery.
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The decision to put Tubman on the $20 bill followed months of outreach from the Treasury Department on which woman should be featured on the note.
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Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, has been criticized for his ownership of slaves and treatment of American Indians. In the redesign announced in 2016, he would have remained on the back of the $20 bill.
