Tubman replacing Jackson on the $20 a deeply symbolic move
A slave-owning president who forced Cherokees and many other Indian nations on deadly marches out of their southern homelands, being succeeded by an African-American abolitionist who risked her life to free others?
The Obama administration's decision is groundbreaking in many ways — there hasn't been a woman on paper money in over a century, and there's never been an African-American.
The history-making appearances of Martin Luther King, Jr., and opera singer Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial will be displayed on the back of the $5 bill, and suffragettes marching for the right of women to vote will appear on the steps of the U.S. Treasury, on the back of the $10 bill.
[...] Tubman's arrival is the one many people have been hoping for, much to the dismay of Jackson supporters, and it comes amid ongoing, emotional debates about other symbols Americans choose to honor, like the Confederate flags and statues being removed from public life in places across the South.
"Not only is this going to be the first African-American historical figure on U.S. currency, but it's a woman specifically from the era of slavery," Myers explained.
Compared to all his predecessors, Jackson, who served from 1828-1836, arrived at the White House as a self-made everyman whose populist message resonated with a country still solidifying its democracy a half-century after declaring independence.
On the centennial of his election, Jackson's legacy was honored by promoting him to the $20 bill, while U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton replaced Jackson on $10 bills as the first modern-sized currency notes began circulating in 1929.
Contributors include Associated Press writers Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee; and Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Arizona.