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Harriet Tubman to appear on $20 bill

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The U.S. Treasury Department is changing the front of the $20 bill to show Harriet Tubman, an African American abolitionist, suffragette, and humanitarian.

President Andrew Jackson will still appear on the back of the bill.

The Treasury also plans to add many other notable women to the back of $5 and $10 bills.

“The new $10 will celebrate the history of the women’s suffrage movement, and feature images of Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul, alongside the Treasury building,” says the Treasury website

“The new $5 will honor historic events that occurred at the Lincoln Memorial in service of our democracy, and will feature Martin Luther King, Jr., Marian Anderson, and Eleanor Roosevelt.”

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen introduced a bill last year to add Harriet Tubman to the $20 bill.

"Harriet Tubman’s fight for equality and freedom embodies the American spirit and she deserves to be featured beside our founding fathers," Shaheen said in a press release. "Having a woman prominently on the face of the twenty will finally send a powerful message on our currency about the important role women have played in our nation’s history."

Not everyone supports changing U.S. currency, however. In particular, critics argue that Alexander Hamilton, the founder of the U.S. Treasury, and Abraham Lincoln, one of the most revered Presidents, should be honored without competition from other figures on the $5 and $10 bills.

UPDATE: Read our Citizen Voices℠ report and find out where New Hampshire stands on this issue.

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