A new campaign is underway to push Andrew Jackson off the $20 and replace him with a woman
If the organizers of Women on $20s have their way, you won't be seeing Andrew Jackson's face on the $20 bill much longer.
Instead of the seventh president of the United States, this new group would like to see Eleanor Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, or Susan B. Anthony staring back on the $20. They're targeting this particular bill because 2020 will mark the centennial of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, and also because they aren't fans of Jackson and his authorization and enforcement of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, along with other controversies. Susan Ades Stone, executive director of Women on $20s, told The Washington Post that Jackson wasn't even fond of paper currency, and preferred gold and silver. "The guy would be rolling in his grave to know that every day the ATM spits out bills with his face on it," Stone said.
Women on $20s has a list of 15 women they say would make excellent replacements for Jackson, and as soon as they get 100,000 signatures on their petition it will be sent to the White House. Their plan might not even be that far-fetched — The Post says that in 2013, a similar campaign in Britain was successful and put Jane Austen on the 10-pound note. —Catherine Garcia
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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