Harriet Tubman $20 Bill To Replace Andrew Jackson, Becoming First Woman In Modern History On US Paper Currency

UPDATE: 4:10 p.m. EDT — The Treasury Department on Wednesday afternoon released more information about the new $5, $10 and $20 bills. The $10 bill will feature images of Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Paul, five women who participated in the women's suffrage movement, while keeping Alexander Hamiltion on the front, the Treasury Department said on its website. The new $5 bill, while keeping Abraham Lincoln on the front, will honor events that took place at the Lincoln Memorial and will feature images of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., singer Marian Anderson and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

UPDATE: 2:45 p.m. EDT — Many politicians and celebrities took to social media Wednesday to share their thoughts on Harriet Tubman replacing President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.

While many were excited, not everyone was happy about the change. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson told the Fox Business Network that he thought Jackson was "a tremendous president" and lamented his removal from the $20 bill.

As for Tubman, Carson suggested Americans put her on a different note. "I love Harriet Tubman. I love what she did. But we can find another way to honor her," Carson said. "Maybe a $2 bill?" (Thomas Jefferson is on the $2 bill.)

Original story:

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is set to announce Wednesday historic changes to the $10 and $20 bills.

Harriet Tubman, the famous abolitionist who helped lead hundreds of slaves to freedom via what came to be known as the Underground Railroad, will replace President Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill. In doing so, Tubman will become the first woman in more than a century, and the first person of color ever, to be depicted on U.S. paper currency, Politico reported Wednesday. Jackson's image will be moved to the reverse side.

Alexander Hamilton will remain on the front of the $10 bill while the Treasury Department will add leaders of the movement to get women the right to vote to the back of the bill. Moreover, Lew is expected to announce changes to the $5 bill — Abraham Lincoln will remain on the front — to include civil rights leaders who have not been named publicly yet.

The decision comes after Lew announced last summer that he was thinking about replacing Hamilton, the nation’s first secretary of the treasury, with a woman. That news drew criticism from fans of Hamilton, who advocated for a national currency and helped establish the Treasury Department.

Those critics suggested removing Jackson from the $20 because of his involvement in forcing Native Americans off their land in the 1830s in a forced deportation called the Trail of Tears. Over the years, Jackson, a slaveholder and Indian fighter, has become widely unpopular, while Hamilton has grown in favor.

In particular, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit Broadway musical about Hamilton’s life has become a cultural touchstone over the past year, bringing even more attention to the first treasury secretary and calls for him to stay on the $10. Last month, Miranda tweeted that he had spoken with Lew, who told him Hamilton would not disappear from the bill.

Many who had advocated for women to be added to U.S. currency expressed fears that it would take too long to put a woman on the $20 bill because the $10 bill was up for redesign first. The redesigns will be ready by 2020, in time for the centennial of women’s suffrage and the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, the New York Times reported Wednesday. However, the new bills will not reach general circulation until the next decade.

The only other women who have appeared on U.S. paper currency are Martha Washington and Pocahontas. Washington, the wife of the first president, was placed on a $1 silver certificate in the 1880s and 1890s, and Pocahontas, the native princess from Virginia, appeared on the back of a $20 bill in the 1860s, National Journal reported. A female figure, Miss Liberty, was pictured on coins for more than a century.

Before the announcement Wednesday, some women had said a win for Hamilton would be a loss for women who wanted to see one of their own on the $10 bill. “It’s yet another 'wait your turn' moment for American women,” Cokie Roberts wrote Wednesday in the New York Times.

But others, such as New York City first lady Chirlane McCray, celebrated the news of Tubman being placed on the $20. “Justice is served,” she tweeted. Many others also took to Twitter to express their excitement over the currency changes.