Internet voters want either Rosa Parks or Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill

13th April 2015   ·   0 Comments

(Special from NorthStar News Today) — Two iconic Black women, Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman, are among four finalists who are in line as possible replacements for President And­rew Jackson’s mug on the $20 bill.

The late First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and recently deceased Wilma Mankiller, the first woman chief of the Cherokee Nation, are the two other finalists, according to Internet voters.

Voters want to replace Jackson, a slave-owning military hero who founded Tennessee, because he signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which relocated several tribes to an area that is now comprises Oklahoma. The forced march is known as “The Trail of Tears.” Jackson was the 17th President of the United States.

Supporters of featuring a wo­man’s face on the $20 bill want to make the change by 2020, the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

Parks is a civil rights icon whose refusal to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala., encouraged Jo Ann Robinson, another Black wo­man, to launch the 1955 Mont­gomery Bus Boy­cott, one of the crucial actions of the Civil Rights Movement.

The boycott was scheduled to last one day, but it was so successful it continued until Mont­go­mery desegregated the city bus system on Dec. 20, 1956, nearly a year later. Robinson was an English teacher at Alabama State College in Montgomery.

Tubman was the most successful conductor on the Underground Railroad before the Civil War and a spy for the Union Army during the Civil War. She died March 10, 1913 in Auburn, N.Y.

The four winners emerged from 100 candidates. Some 256,659 people voted.

The competition is sponsored by WomenOn20s. The group’s motto is ” A woman’s place is on the money.”

Tubman died in 1913 and Parks died in 2005.

This article originally published in the April 13, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.