Wednesday, April 20, 2016 6:52:43 PM
Harriet Tubman to be first African-American on U.S. currency
WASHINGTON | By Megan Cassella
Wed Apr 20, 2016 5:40pm EDT
VIDEO
Anti-slavery crusader Harriet Tubman will become the first African-American to be featured on the face of U.S. paper currency when she replaces President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, the U.S. Treasury Department announced on Wednesday.
She will also be the first woman on U.S. paper currency in more than a century.
The redesigned $20 bill will move Jackson to the back of the bill alongside an image of the White House, Treasury officials said.
A new $10 bill will keep founding father Alexander Hamilton on the front, while adding images of five women, all leaders of the women's suffrage movement, to the back.
The reverse of a new $5 note will honor events held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., including former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr., officials said.
The slew of changes give the Treasury "a chance to open the aperture to reflect more of America's history," Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told reporters on a conference call.
The decision to replace the seventh president of the United States with Tubman, who was born a slave and helped hundreds of slaves escape using the network of safe-houses known as the Underground Railroad, followed public outreach by the Treasury Department regarding which woman should be featured on a bill after they announced plans in June to feature one on the $10 note.
While no depictions of African-Americans have appeared on U.S. currency, the signatures of five African-Americans have been on it. Four were Registers of the Treasury and included Blanche K. Bruce, Judson W. Lyons, William T. Vernon and James C. Napier, and one was U.S. Treasurer Azie Taylor Morton.
Native American Sacagawea has been featured on the gold dollar coin since 1999, and suffragist Susan B. Anthony has appeared on the silver dollar coin since 1979. Deaf-blind author and activist Helen Keller is on the back of the Alabama quarter, which was first issued in 2003.
Prompted partly by a young girl's letter to President Barack Obama about the lack of women on U.S. currency, a social media campaign last year called "Women on 20s" began pushing for a woman to replace Jackson.
On Wednesday, the movement's leaders said they were "ready to claim victory" but only if the bill was issued by 2020 to mark the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote.
“What was to be a celebration of female American heroes ... cannot be postponed,” the group's founder Barbara Ortiz Howard said in a statement.
U.S. Treasury spokesman Rob Runyan could not say when the redesigned bill would be issued.
The women last depicted on U.S. bills were first lady Martha Washington on the $1 silver certificate from 1891 to 1896, and Native American Pocahontas in a group photo on the $20 bill from 1865 to 1869.
Harriet Tubman became the top-trending hashtag on Twitter shortly after the news broke on Wednesday, with more than 100,000 tweets and mentions online.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams (@BPEricAdams) tweeted, “Having #HarrietTubman on the new $20 bill is a #milestone for our nation, a powerful acknowledgment of great #women and #AfricanAmericans.”
Other users applauded Treasury’s decision to keep Hamilton on the $10 bill, which is a decision many say resulted from the influence of the popular, Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical “Hamilton,” created by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Actress Mara Wilson (@MaraWritesStuff) tweeted Miranda on Wednesday stating, “@Lin_Manuel First you win a Pulitzer, now you're affecting US currency. Get some rest!"
(Reporting by Megan Cassella; additional reporting by Timothy Ahmann in Washington and Gina Cherelus and Amy Tennery in New York; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
Harriet Tubman in a photo dated between 1860 -1875.
Reuters/Courtesy Library of Congress
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-currency-idUSKCN0XH21W
Specifically posted to
Remarks by the President at Commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the 13th Amendment
[...]
We would do a disservice to those warriors of justice -- Tubman, and Douglass, and Lincoln, and King -- were we to deny that the scars of our nation’s original sin are still with us today. (Applause.) We condemn ourselves to shackles once more if we fail to answer those who wonder if they’re truly equals in their communities, or in their justice systems, or in a job interview. We betray the efforts of the past if we fail to push back against bigotry in all its forms. (Applause.)
But we betray our most noble past as well if we were to deny the possibility of movement, the possibility of progress; if we were to let cynicism consume us and fear overwhelm us. If we lost hope. For however slow, however incomplete, however harshly, loudly, rudely challenged at each point along our journey, in America, we can create the change that we seek. (Applause.) All it requires is that our generation be willing to do what those who came before us have done: To rise above the cynicism and rise above the fear, to hold fast to our values, to see ourselves in each other, to cherish dignity and opportunity not just for our own children but for somebody else’s child. (Applause.) To remember that our freedom is bound up with the freedom of others -– regardless of what they look like or where they come from or what their last name is or what faith they practice. (Applause.) To be honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. To nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of Earth. To nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of Earth. That is our choice. Today, we affirm hope.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/12/09/remarks-president-commemoration-150th-anniversary-13th-amendment
roughly a bit over a quarter down in yours.
WASHINGTON | By Megan Cassella
Wed Apr 20, 2016 5:40pm EDT
VIDEO
Anti-slavery crusader Harriet Tubman will become the first African-American to be featured on the face of U.S. paper currency when she replaces President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, the U.S. Treasury Department announced on Wednesday.
She will also be the first woman on U.S. paper currency in more than a century.
The redesigned $20 bill will move Jackson to the back of the bill alongside an image of the White House, Treasury officials said.
A new $10 bill will keep founding father Alexander Hamilton on the front, while adding images of five women, all leaders of the women's suffrage movement, to the back.
The reverse of a new $5 note will honor events held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., including former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr., officials said.
The slew of changes give the Treasury "a chance to open the aperture to reflect more of America's history," Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told reporters on a conference call.
The decision to replace the seventh president of the United States with Tubman, who was born a slave and helped hundreds of slaves escape using the network of safe-houses known as the Underground Railroad, followed public outreach by the Treasury Department regarding which woman should be featured on a bill after they announced plans in June to feature one on the $10 note.
While no depictions of African-Americans have appeared on U.S. currency, the signatures of five African-Americans have been on it. Four were Registers of the Treasury and included Blanche K. Bruce, Judson W. Lyons, William T. Vernon and James C. Napier, and one was U.S. Treasurer Azie Taylor Morton.
Native American Sacagawea has been featured on the gold dollar coin since 1999, and suffragist Susan B. Anthony has appeared on the silver dollar coin since 1979. Deaf-blind author and activist Helen Keller is on the back of the Alabama quarter, which was first issued in 2003.
Prompted partly by a young girl's letter to President Barack Obama about the lack of women on U.S. currency, a social media campaign last year called "Women on 20s" began pushing for a woman to replace Jackson.
On Wednesday, the movement's leaders said they were "ready to claim victory" but only if the bill was issued by 2020 to mark the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote.
“What was to be a celebration of female American heroes ... cannot be postponed,” the group's founder Barbara Ortiz Howard said in a statement.
U.S. Treasury spokesman Rob Runyan could not say when the redesigned bill would be issued.
The women last depicted on U.S. bills were first lady Martha Washington on the $1 silver certificate from 1891 to 1896, and Native American Pocahontas in a group photo on the $20 bill from 1865 to 1869.
Harriet Tubman became the top-trending hashtag on Twitter shortly after the news broke on Wednesday, with more than 100,000 tweets and mentions online.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams (@BPEricAdams) tweeted, “Having #HarrietTubman on the new $20 bill is a #milestone for our nation, a powerful acknowledgment of great #women and #AfricanAmericans.”
Other users applauded Treasury’s decision to keep Hamilton on the $10 bill, which is a decision many say resulted from the influence of the popular, Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical “Hamilton,” created by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Actress Mara Wilson (@MaraWritesStuff) tweeted Miranda on Wednesday stating, “@Lin_Manuel First you win a Pulitzer, now you're affecting US currency. Get some rest!"
(Reporting by Megan Cassella; additional reporting by Timothy Ahmann in Washington and Gina Cherelus and Amy Tennery in New York; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
Harriet Tubman in a photo dated between 1860 -1875.
Reuters/Courtesy Library of Congress
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-currency-idUSKCN0XH21W
Specifically posted to
Remarks by the President at Commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the 13th Amendment
[...]
We would do a disservice to those warriors of justice -- Tubman, and Douglass, and Lincoln, and King -- were we to deny that the scars of our nation’s original sin are still with us today. (Applause.) We condemn ourselves to shackles once more if we fail to answer those who wonder if they’re truly equals in their communities, or in their justice systems, or in a job interview. We betray the efforts of the past if we fail to push back against bigotry in all its forms. (Applause.)
But we betray our most noble past as well if we were to deny the possibility of movement, the possibility of progress; if we were to let cynicism consume us and fear overwhelm us. If we lost hope. For however slow, however incomplete, however harshly, loudly, rudely challenged at each point along our journey, in America, we can create the change that we seek. (Applause.) All it requires is that our generation be willing to do what those who came before us have done: To rise above the cynicism and rise above the fear, to hold fast to our values, to see ourselves in each other, to cherish dignity and opportunity not just for our own children but for somebody else’s child. (Applause.) To remember that our freedom is bound up with the freedom of others -– regardless of what they look like or where they come from or what their last name is or what faith they practice. (Applause.) To be honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. To nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of Earth. To nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of Earth. That is our choice. Today, we affirm hope.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/12/09/remarks-president-commemoration-150th-anniversary-13th-amendment
roughly a bit over a quarter down in yours.
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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