OPINION — Editorial

Others say: Don't back away from Tubman

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin demurred when asked if he supports his predecessor's decision to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. "It's not something that I'm focused on at the moment," he said last Thursday in a CNBC interview: "Right now we have a lot more important issues to focus on."

Granted, Mnuchin is dealing with such critical issues as a possible showdown on raising the national debt ceiling and the Trump administration's push for tax cuts. But Mnuchin is wrong if he thinks reneging on a promise to put the first African American woman on paper money is not important.

A massive grass-roots drive for a woman to be included on U.S. currency preceeded last year's announcement by then-Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew that Tubman, a one-time slave, leader of the Underground Railroad and Union hero of the Civil War, would replace President Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill. Lew had to contend with a thicket of delicate issues, but as we wrote at the time, he came up with a truly elegant way to provide for the addition of women and civil rights leaders on banknotes without dropping the presidents already depicted.

Jackson's image would be retained in a redesigned reverse side of the $20 bill, according to the plan. Abraham Lincoln and Alexander Hamilton would remain on the front of the $5 and $10 bills, but the reverse of those notes would be redesigned to include depictions of such historic events as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream speech" at the Lincoln Memorial and a 1914 suffragette march at the Treasury building.

Lew knew that implementation of his scheme would rest with a new administration--final designs scheduled were to be unveiled only in 2020. But he dismissed concerns the reform would be reversed.

Harriet Tubman was a woman who distinguished herself during this country's greatest trial. Putting her on the $20 bill is symbolically important--and so, too, would be denying her that rightful honor.

Editorial on 09/07/2017

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