Tired of waiting for the Harriet Tubman $20? Some people are making their own.

A Harriet Tubman stamp.
(Image credit: Dano Wall/Etsy)

It looks like Harriet Tubman will be arriving on the $20 bill earlier than expected.

Last month, during a House Financial Services Committee hearing, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced the Tubman $20 would be delayed until at least 2026. But members of a Boston Church decided to skip the wait.

In May, Hope Central Church began stamping $20 bills donated to their collections plates with Tubman's face, Religion News Service reports. Tubman was selected as the new face of the $20 bill by the Obama administration in 2016, to replace President Andrew Jackson. Jackson has been criticized for his staunch anti-abolitionism and role in the forced Native American relocation and genocide of the mid-19th century. Tubman, who died in 1913, created a network of anti-slavery safe houses and activists known as the Underground Railroad.

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Hope Central is using a 3D-printed stamp created by artist Dano Wall to mark the bills; Wall has been manufacturing and selling the stamps online since 2017, and has sold over 700 so far. Hope Central member Marylou Steeden told RNS that she noticed the number of $20 bills donated has increased since the church began stamping them with Tubman's face. "Everyone who does this just gets giddy about it," Steeden said. "It just feels so good, like a little rebellion." Defacing currency is prohibited under U.S. law.

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