After years of total ignoring of the contributions of African Americans in our history as a nation, finally, last year, it was determined to change the $20 bill from President Andrew Jackson to abolitionist and runaway slave Harriet Tubman.
This decision by the Treasury Department elevates a person of color and a woman to an honor well deserved.
Taking Andrew Jackson off the front of the bill is not the tragedy that it is made out to be. He has been on the $20 bill since 1928, a century after he won the Presidency. And he would be placed on the back of the bill instead, so would not disappear.
Jackson is an important historical figure, but besides being a slave owner, which clearly in itself is not the biggest issue as many Presidents before the Civil War were slave owners, he stands out as negative for the mass murder of native American (The Trail of Tears), and for his strong condemnation of and efforts to block anti slavery literature from being able to be voiced through the US Mail system, as well as his destruction of the Second National Bank of the United States, which led us into the Panic of 1837.
Keeping Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill makes total sense, as he was a very constructive and influential figure in many positive ways in our history, while Jackson has so many negatives.
Now, however, it seems that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is moving toward stopping this change in the $20 bill, due to Donald Trump’s love affair with Jackson, and Trump’s insensitivity to the evil aspects of Jackson’s time in office, and his massive racist viewpoints.
It only adds to the image of Trump as racist, which one would think he would wish to overcome by avoiding changing the well laid plans on the $20 bill.
So there is a behind the scenes attempt to prevent Harriet Tubman from being placed on the $20 bill, and there must be strong public outrage at the idea and reality of such an action.