Harriet Tubman, an African-American abolitionist who was born a slave, will stand with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin as among the iconic faces of U.S. currency.

The $20 bill will be redesigned with Tubman’s portrait on the front, marking two historic milestones, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew announced Wednesday. She will be the first African American on U.S. paper money and the first woman depicted in 100 years.

The leader of the Underground Railroad will replace the portrait of Andrew Jackson, the nation’s seventh president and a slave owner, who will be pushed to the back of the bill.

Lew also settled the backlash that had erupted after he announced an initial plan to remove Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first Treasury secretary, from the $10 bill in order to honor a woman.

Hamilton will remain on the $10 note, Lew said.

Instead, the Treasury building on the back of the bill will be replaced with leaders of the suffrage movement to give women the right to vote, including Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Paul.

The $5 bill will also undergo change. The illustration of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the will be redesigned to honor “events at the Lincoln Memorial that helped to shape our history and our democracy.” The new image will include civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt and Marian Anderson.

Read more at JETMag.com.


With Associated Press