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What Happened to the Tubman Twenty? [1]
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Date: 2023-05-04
In 2016 Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced Harriet Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the twenty dollar bill. The target date was 2020 the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment..
Harriet Tubman, who was an enslaved woman, replacing Andrew Jackson enslaver of thousands, would honor those Americans whose labor built and enriched this country.
Jackson and Tubman both were in the transportation business. Jackson founded and ran the Trail of Tears which generally got 1 star customer satisfaction ratings while Tubman worked in the Underground Railroad which received 5 star ratings.
Both disrespected the Supreme Court. Tubman ignored the Dred Scott decision and Jackson famously said of a court decision "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." and ignored the Worcester vs Georgia ruling.
2020 came and went without a new twenty. The next Secretary of the Treasury found it too difficult to do. In accordance with his president’s program for political wrongness he deflected, denied and delayed until the end.
Secretary Mnuchin displaying new bills with his signature
Senator Shaheen is pushing a bill to require the new twenty to be introduced by the end of 2030, but printing and counterfeiting problems and whatever allow for a couple of years delay.
It doesn’t always take decades to bring out new currency.
When the Ku Klux Klan was having trouble raising money to honor the Confederacy with a giant monument they were able to get a new coin in less than two years.
Back in 1925 the Stone Mountain Memorial needed money to carve a relief of the traitors Davis, Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
The Klan was at their peak of power. In Indiana the governor and a majority of the legislators belonged to the Klan.
A bill was passed March 5, 1924 and the first minting by the Philadelphia Mint was struck January 21, 1925. Up to 5 million coins were authorized. The plan was for the Association to buy the half dollar coin at face value and sell it for a premium.
The bill read:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in commemoration of the commencement on June 18, 1923, of the work of carving on Stone Mountain, in the State of Georgia, a monument to the valor of the soldiers of the South, which was the inspiration of their sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters in the Spanish-American and World Wars, and in memory of Warren G. Harding, President of the United States of America*, in whose administration the work was begun
* Tribute to Harding dropped from final design.
The Klan was happy with the product.
Back of 1925 Stone Mountain Half Dollar which honors southern soldiers. E PLURIBUS UNUM — on the coin,Well Bless my heart.
‘Stonewall Jackson and Robert Lee from the Stone Mountain Design from the Stone mountain Memorial Carving. Including Jefferson Davis as on the mountain was a traitor too far.
It is time for Harriet Tubman’s face to grace the twenty.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/4/2167011/-What-Happened-to-the-Tubman-Twenty
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