A female historical figure has not graced United States paper currency inwell over a century.
While there was a recent announcement that the Biden administrationintends to "speed up" the effort to place a portrait of Harriet Tubman on the front of the $20 bill, it is expected to take nearly a decade before that note is in circulation.
Sojourner Truth and other iconic American women's rights activists may grace paper money before the Tubman $20 is released, according to a timeline provided by the U.S. Department of Treasury and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
When the U.S. Department of Treasury announced in 2016 that it intended to put Tubman on the front of the $20, it noted thatthe $10 bill was the next to be redesigned due to security issues, and would not be released until at least 2026. That denomination likely won't bein circulation until 2028.
Jack Lew, Treasury Secretary under former president Barack Obama,wrotein an open letter in 2016, "The new $10 design will depict that historic (1913)marchand honor Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul for their contributions to the suffrage movement. The front of the new $10 will continue to feature Alexander Hamilton, our nation’s first Treasury Secretary and the architect of our economic system."
Truth would become the second person of color and the first African American depicted on U.S. paper currency, but there is no guarantee the famed abolitionist and suffragist who called Battle Creek home will be included on the redesigned $10 bill.
"No final images have been selected regarding the designs for the upcoming redesign series,"Lydia J. Washington,Lead Public Affairs Specialist for the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP)said in an email Monday.
Counterfeiting threats
When Lew made the announcement, the goal was to have the final concept design of the new $10 ready for public release by 2020, in time to mark the 100-year anniversary of the passing of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.
However, theprimary reason currency is redesigned is to address potential and current counterfeiting threats. With that in mind, some felt it was far fetched to havea2020 timeline to publicly releasethe design concept, nearly a decade before the note would reach circulation.
Larry R. Felix servedas director of the BEP from 2006 to 2015. The George W. Bush appointeetold the Washington Post in 2019, “those announcements were not grounded in reality. The U.S. had not at the time acquired the security features to redesign and protect the notes.”
During his first campaign for his presidency in 2016, former president Donald Trump bristled at removing Andrew Jackson from the front of the $20 bill in favor of Tubman. While he said Tubman was "fantastic," he added that such a move was "pure political correctness."
MORE:What to know about abolitionist hero Harriet Tubman and the effort to get her on the $20 bill
The 'Ain't I a Woman?' speech made Sojourner Truth famous. The version you know isn't what she said.
USA Today Women of the Century
During a 2019 congressional hearing, former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said of Tubman's image onthe $20, "It’s not a decision that is likely to come until way past my term, even if I serve the second term for the president, so I am not focused on that at the moment.”
On Jan. 25, White House Press Secretary Jenn Psaki said, "The Treasury Department is taking steps to resume efforts to put Harriet Tubman on the front of the new $20 notes. It's important that our notes, our money... reflect the history and diversity of our country, and Harriet Tubman's image gracing the new $20 would certainly reflect that. So we're exploring ways to speed up that effort."
One factor potentially impactingthe rollout of new currency is afederal court of appeals ruling against the Treasury Department in favor of the American Council of the Blind. It upheld an earlier ruling requiring that the Treasury "must make federal reserve notes distinguishable to the visually impaired no later than the next scheduled redesign of each denomination."The BEP is developing a raised tactile featureto help the blind and visually impaired to identify notes, a featureintended to appear on the first denomination released in the next redesign.
In 2013, theAdvanced Counterfeit Deterrence (ACD) Steering Committee– which monitors currency security issues and provides recommendations to the Secretary of the Treasury – indicated that the $10 note would be the next note to be redesigned and it is expected that it will happen in approximately 2026, followed by the $50 (2028), $20 (2030), $5 (2032-2035), and $100 (2034-2038) notes, pending any new developments in counterfeiting threats or technology issues.
"Since currency is only redesigned for security against counterfeiting, not aesthetics, we do not release design concepts to the public prior to the official unveiling and issuance of the redesigned new note," Washington said."The Secretary of the Treasury selects the final currency designs... The currency design process is complex and significant testing is required for the notes to be production ready.Once production is underway, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, as the issuing authority, will determine the actual issue dates for the redesigned notes."
The head of the Treasury is now Janet Yellen, the first woman to hold that position in the department’s 232-year history.
Women on currency
Martha Washington, wife of George Washington and the inaugural First Lady of the United States, was the face of the $1 silver certificate issued in 1886 and 1891. She remains thethe only woman — other than allegories such as Lady Justice and Lady Liberty — depicted on the face of a United States banknote.
The first woman to appear on U.S. currency was Pocahontas in 1869. She was depicted in a group picture on the backside of a $10 bill fronted by Secretary of State Daniel Webster from 1865 to 1869. The reverse side of the 1875 $20 note featured a vignette of the "Baptism of Pocahontas" at itscenter.
Susan B. AnthonyandSacagawea appeared ondollar coinsbeginning in 1979and2000, respectively,andHelen Keller appeared on a special Alabama quarter issued in 2003.
A nonprofitcalled Women on 20s launched a grassroots campaign in 2012to put a woman on the front of the$20 bill. The group solicited votesfor which women should be depicted on U.S. currency, with Harriet Tubman winning the majority of the over 600,000 votes cast following multiple rounds of voting.
"We went to the treasury and we never expected there to be this prolonged conversation about who would be represented on our money," saidBarbara Ortiz Howard, founder of Women on 20s. "We're still far away from the $10, and I don't know why that has been held up except the last administration had a different set of priorities. They didn't prioritize it and now hopefully we'll get back on track."
Ortiz Howard added that she believes the effort to put female historical figures on American currency can be accomplished efficiently, even as the nation continues to grapple withthe ongoing public health and economic crisis'."We have a lot of people in this country, and a lot of problems," she said. "Everybody is not working on a vaccine or the economy. People can work at different things and we can have cultural activism."
Who was Sojourner Truth?
Truth was born Isabella Baumfree in New York, where shefreed herself from slavery and became a prominent abolitionist and women's rights advocate.
On the heels of the wildly successful "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave," the illiterate Truth begandictating her memoirs to her friend Olive Gilbert.In 1850, William LloydGarrison privately published her book, "The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: a Northern Slave." A year later, Truthgave her famed "Ain't I a woman?" speech at the Ohio Women's Convention.
At a time when Black womenwere largely excluded from the conversation about suffrage, Truth was one of the few prominent Blackwomen to speak of women's rights. She felt universal suffrage could be achieved, commenting in 1867, “I feel that I have the right to have just as much as a man. There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about the colored women; and if colored men get their rights, and colored women not theirs, the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before.”
Truth was among the hundreds of suffragists throughout the country who attempted to vote in the 1872 presidential election. Shearrived at a polling station in Battle Creek on Nov. 5 that year, demanding a ballot for the presidential election and was turned away.
In 1857, Truthmoved toHarmonia, a Spiritualist villagenear Battle Creek (what is now Fort Custer). In1867 she relocated to 38 College Street in Battle Creek, whichshe called home until her death in 1883. She isburred at Oak Hill Cemetery.
In 2014, Truth was included inSmithsonianmagazine's list of the "100 Most Significant Americans of All Time."
Truth continues to command a strong presence in her adopted hometown. In downtown Battle Creek, Truth is memorialized with a larger-than-life bronze statue at Monument Park, along with a large mural and other artwork. All of M-66 in Calhoun County is designated as the Sojourner Truth Memorial Highway. Her headstone at Oak Hill Cemetery wasdecorated with "I voted" stickers during the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.
"For someone like Sojourner— who stood forequality, equity and social justice— for her image to be on our nation’s currency, really lifts up the principals for which she stood for and how inspirational would that be for our country that it’s a message for us to lift up?" saidKimberly Holley, Executive Director for the Sojourner Truth Center for Liberation and Justice."Most of the time, national heroes and leaders who are lifted up are men, so to have women lifted up in this way is huge and really begins to disrupt the narrative and show the impact women have made in our country."
Nick Buckley can be reached at [email protected] or 269-966-0652. Follow him on Twitter:@NickJBuckley
