Former slave Harriet Tubman to be new face of U.S. $20 bill

Former slave Harriet Tubman to be new face of U.S. $20 bill

PanARMENIAN.Net - U.S. paper money is getting a historic makeover. Harriet Tubman, an African-American abolitionist born into slavery, will be the new face on the $20 bill, the Associated Press reports.

The leader of the Underground Railroad is replacing the portrait of Andrew Jackson, the nation's seventh president and a slave owner, who is being pushed to the back of the bill.

And Alexander Hamilton, the nation's first Treasury secretary who's enjoying a revival thanks to a hit Broadway play, will keep his spot on the $10 note after earlier talk of his removal.

The changes are part of a currency redesign announced Wednesday, April 20, by Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, with the new $20 marking two historic milestones: Tubman will become the first African-American on U.S. paper money and the first woman to be depicted on currency in 100 years.

The back of the $20, which now shows the White House, will be redesigned to include the White House and Jackson, whose statute stands across the street in Lafayette Park.

The $5 bill will also undergo change: The illustration of the Lincoln Memorial on the back will be redesigned to honor "events at the Lincoln Memorial that helped to shape our history and our democracy."

The new image on the $5 bill will include civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who gave his famous "I have a dream" speech on the steps of the memorial in 1963, and Marian Anderson and Eleanor Roosevelt. Anderson, an African-American opera singer, gave a concert at the memorial in 1939 after she had been blocked from singing at the then-segregated Constitution Hall. The Lincoln Memorial concert was arranged by Mrs. Roosevelt.

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