Harriet Tubman's face may soon be seen on @20 bills if a grassroots campaign succeeds in convincing President Barack Obama to change Andrew Jackson's portrait to one of the most famous woman in U.S. history. All U.S. paper money currently feature portraits of men.
Tubman was an escaped slave, abolitionist, and "conductor" of the purported Underground Railroad that assisted runaway slaves to escape to freedom during the 1850s. An online poll on Tuesday showed that she was the popular choice to replace Old Hickory on the $20 note.
"The Women on 20s" petition surveyed 609,000 people, more than 118,000 of whom picked Tubman to be the face of the popular U.S. currency denomination. In second place was former first lady and U.N. ambassador Eleanor Roosevelt, followed by civil rights hero Rosa Parks, and first female chief of the Cherokee Nation Wilma Mankiller.
"Our work won't be done until we're holding a Harriet $20 bill in our hands in time for the centennial of women's suffrage in 2020," executive director of the group Women on 20s Susan Ades Stone said in a statement, according to Reuters.
The organization further said that they had informed Obama of the poll results and urged him to instruct Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to authorize the currency redesign for the bills to be put into circulation before the 100th anniversary in 2020 of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which established women's right to vote nationally.
Women on 20s said that it focused on the $20 bill because Andrew Jackson, the nation's seventh president and founder of the Democratic Party, had helped the Indian Removal Act of 1830 pass - which drove Native American tribes from the southeastern United States. According to the group, Jackson was also an "ironic" choice to be featured on the $20 due to his disapproval of paper currency.
"The Women on 20s" campaign was launched earlier this year and has gone viral online, with visitors from all 50 states checking out their website.
"There are a number of interesting currency ideas, but we do not have any comment on the specific campaign," a spokesperson from the U.S. Treasury Department said according to NBC News.
Aside from her efforts to free slaves, Tubman also served as a spy and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War. Civil rights leader Barbara Jordan and American Red Cross founder Clara Barton are included among the other contenders to replace Jackson on the $20 bill.
