American currency, long the domain of long dead white males, is finally getting some diversity.
It’s happening in the coolest way, too.
Originally, the Treasury Department announced Alexander Hamilton would be taken off the $10 bill. The reasoning was because the 10 was next up for a redesign, that would be the easiest, fastest way to get a woman in circulation.
The outcry was quick. For starters, Alexander Hamilton is experiencing a bit of a renaissance, with a hit musical to his name.
But possibly more important, the person on the bill above him, Andrew Jackson, was a racist lout and generally terrible person. Sure, it would be great to put a woman or a person of color on a bill, but, people asked, isn’t it somewhat self-defeating if you do it by taking a good person off one note while keeping the man who forcibly removed the Indians from Florida on the other?
Well, today the Treasury Department made things right.
Andrew Jackson is coming off the 20, and Harriet Tubman is taking his place.
Boom.
From Politico, who got the scoop:
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Wednesday will announce plans to both keep Alexander Hamilton on the front of the $10 bill and to knock Andrew Jackson off the front of the $20 in favor of Harriet Tubman, sources tell POLITICO.
Lew is expected to roll out a set of changes that also include putting leaders of the women’s suffrage movement on the back of the $10 bill, and incorporating civil rights era leaders and other important moments in American history into the $5 bill.
Jackson will likely remain on the back of the bill. Tubman, for you Bros who ain’t in the know, was a fucking boss. She was an escaped slave who worked as an abolitionist before the Civil War, then worked as a spy for the Union, becoming the first woman to lead an armed raid, one that freed 750 slaves.
The bills are expected to be in circulation by 2020
And hey, Jackson fans who are upset, who knows? Maybe one day Tubman will be replaced by Trump. Because…