WOMEN REPLACING JACKSON ON $20 GETTING POPULAR, UNLESS YOU’RE A JACKSON

A campaign to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill with a woman is gaining press and causing concern for Jackson’s East Tennessee descendants.

“We’re obviously biased, and we think Andrew Jackson should stay on the $20 bill,” said Andrew Jackson VI, a Knox County General Sessions Court judge.

The campaign has picked up since February through an online campaign and voting process to choose a woman as a representative on the currency.

Founder Barbara Ortiz Howard said she originally founded the campaign after noticing there are no women on our paper money in the U.S.

The group debated between the $10 and $20 bill, but ultimately decided to go after the $20 bill because the year 2020 is the centennial of women’s right to vote, she said.

“We wanted a denomination that was very commonly used,” Howard said. “If we’re only going to have one, we should have one that people see all the time to really recognize all of women’s accomplishments.”

The campaign held a primary vote to narrow the field from 15 candidates to four, which garnered more than 250,000 online votes, she said. The remaining candidates are Eleanor Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and Wilma Mankiller.  Final voting for the Women on the 20s campaign lasts until May 10 at 11:59 p.m. ET. and can be voted on here WOMEN ON THE $20s

“We have our centennial in 2020,” Howard said. “We have to get crack-a-lackin now. We have to do this now because it takes time to order the artwork and get the plates and get it done. We have to honor women.”

 

The Women on the 20s campaign wants to take the results of the online vote before the president and the U.S. secretary of the treasury to mandate a change, but Jackson’s relatives in East Tennessee are not in agreement.

Jackson said his great great great grandfather is known for his role as a U.S. president, Tennessee senator, and war hero. He does not condone his relative’s role in the Indian Removal Act, but said he believes what he did for this country outweighs the bad.

“It’s not that we think other people don’t deserve to be on money,” Jackson said. “We just think Andrew Jackson should stay on money.”