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A Bunch of People Want to Put Harriet Tubman on the $20 Instead of Andrew Jackson

The people have spoken, and they are sick of looking at Andrew Jackson's face.

Photo via WikiCommons

The people have spoken, and they are sick of looking at Andrew Jackson's face. In an online poll held to find a new, female historical figure for the $20 bill, Harriet Tubman emerged as the crowd favorite. The poll was conducted by a non-profit group called Women on 20s.

Andrew Jackson has been on the $20 bill since 1928, when he replaced Grover Cleveland, but no one seems to remember why. Even Howard J. Kittle, CEO of an Andrew Jackson historical museum, told the Washington Post he was unsure why a Treasury Department committee decided to stick Jackson's face on the bill. Jackson was always opposed to paper money anyway, preferring gold and silver.

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Women on 20s's movement to put an end to Jackson's tenure garnered over 600,000 votes, of which Tubman won over a third, TIME reports.

The former slave-turned-abolitionist who helped facilitate the Underground Railroad does seem like a better candidate for the honor of gracing the nation's currency, seeing as how Jackson was a lifelong slave owner and supporter of a measure that directly led to the Trail of Tears and all.

Susan Ades Stone, executive director of Women on 20s, said in statement that "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."

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