Group's Goal: Put Woman on the $20 Bill

Roosevelt one of 15 candidates a women's group hopes will replace Andrew Jackson
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 4, 2015 11:27 AM CST
Group's Goal: Put Woman on the $20 Bill
In this Dec. 1, 2001, file photo, civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks attends a ceremony honoring the 46th anniversary of her arrest for civil disobedience, at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.   (AP Photo/Paul Warner, File)

Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Clara Barton—they were all activists who changed the American landscape, and they all deserve to be on the $20 bill way more than the guy who's currently there. That's the stance of Women On 20s, a campaign vying to tear Andrew Jackson's mug off the currency and replace it with one of 15 female candidates by 2020—the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which solidified women's voting rights, the Washington Post reports. "A woman's place is on the money," the group's website says, appealing to the public to "make our money egalitarian and inclusive." Organizers say if they get 100,000 signatures or so on their survey, they'll send a petition to the White House to recommend the Treasury swap out president No. 7 for its most popular woman contender.

But why pick on Jackson? For one, he orchestrated a devastating episode in Native American history, authorizing the Indian Removal Act of 1830 to make many give up their land to white farmers, the Post notes. "Andrew Jackson engineered a genocide. He shouldn't be on our currency," Jillian Keenan wrote for Slate last year; Susan Ades Stone, executive director for Women On 20s, tells BuzzFeed the "face already on the $20 bill ... [is] a reminder of pain." (BuzzFeed adds that even the president thinks women on currency is "a pretty good idea.") Sacagawea is the only real woman on currency now in production, though Susan B. Anthony dollar coins and Alabama's 2003 quarters featuring Helen Keller may still be floating around, as per the US Mint. Besides, Jackson hated paper money, Stone tells the Post: "The guy would be rolling in his grave to know that every day the ATM spits out bills with his face on it." (Check out the Women On 20s website to see the full list of candidates.)

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