Reuters — Treasury Secretary Jack Lew called it “an exciting moment” after it was announced on Wednesday (April 20) that anti-slavery crusader Harriet Tubman will become the first African-American on the face of U.S. paper currency.
She will also be the first woman in more than a century to hold the honor when she replaces former President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.
“I hope Americans take a step back and appreciate that we listened to them,” said Lew.
The U.S. Treasury Department said that Tubman, who was born into slavery in the early 1820s and went on to help hundreds of slaves escape, would take the center spot on the bill, while Jackson, a slave owner, would move to the back.
“It’s a great American story about how, if you care about our democracy, it doesn’t matter where you come from and it doesn’t matter what you’ve started out with. You can change our country,” explained Lew.
There will also be a slew of changes to the $5 and $10 notes.
A new $10 bill will add images of five female leaders of the women’s suffrage movement, including Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, to the back, while keeping founding father Alexander Hamilton on the front.
The reverse of a new $5 note will show former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., officials said. Former President Abraham Lincoln will remain on the front.
Lew said the designs should be unveiled by 2020 and go into circulation “as quickly as possible,” although he declined to say when. He said the $10 bill was scheduled to go out first, citing security needs.
The long-awaited decision to replace the seventh president of the United States with Tubman followed months of outreach by the Treasury regarding which woman should be featured on a bill.
The debate began when the Treasury announced plans in June to feature a woman on the $10 note, prompted partly by a young girl’s letter to President Barack Obama that criticized the lack of women on U.S. currency and a social media campaign last year called “Women on 20s.”