WASHINGTON (AP) – With a change of administration, it looks like Harriet Tubman is heading back to head the $ 20 bill.
Biden press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that the Treasury Department is taking steps to resume efforts to include the 19th-century abolitionist leader on the $ 20 bill.
Obama administration Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had selected Tubman to replace Andrew Jackson, the nation’s seventh president, with the $ 20 bill.
But Tubman’s fate has been in doubt since the 2016 presidential campaign based on critical comments by then-candidate Donald Trump, who called the movement “pure political correctness.”
Trump administration Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin did not move forward with the Obama administration’s decision. Instead, Mnuchin in 2019 announced a delay in redesigning the $ 20 bill to first redesign the $ 10 and $ 50 bills to improve security features to thwart counterfeiters.
The presentation of the new $ 20 bill with Tubman, famous for its efforts to encourage freedom slaves on the subway, had been scheduled by the Obama administration to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment that granted the right to vote to women.
According to the schedule announced by Mnuchin in May 2019, the redesigned $ 20 bill would not have come out until 2028 with the final bill designs not announced until 2026.
But Psaki told reporters during a briefing Monday that she and other officials were surprised to learn of the delays in putting Tubman on the $ 20 bill. With a change in administrations, he said the Treasury Department was taking steps to resume efforts to put Tubman on the $ 20 bill.
“It’s important that our money reflects the history and diversity of our country and that the image of Harriet Tubman adorning the new $ 20 bill reflects that,” Psaki said. “We’re exploring ways to accelerate that effort.”
Psaki said details about a new timeline for introducing a $ 20 redesign with Tubman would be announced when it was finalized by the Treasury Department. Biden has selected Janet Yellen to be its Secretary of the Treasury, the first woman to hold that position in the department’s 232 years.