The "And the four Finalists are ..." Story

Rosa Parks

It was an ordinary day.  Checking out a story in the newspaper relating to taking Andrew Jackson's face off the $20 and replacing it with the face of a woman.  Seems that many have been trying to take his photo off the $20 since he was said to have disparaged paper currency when he said in his farewell address that paper currency has no intrinsic value and is liable to great and sudden fluctuations, thereby rendering property insecure and the wages of labor unsteady and uncertain.  He favored silver and gold coins to paper money.  So who ever put him on the $20 to start?  

Harriet Tubman

Jackson also signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830 which enabled the horrors or the Trail of Tears.  The act took land from the Indians east of the Mississippi and gave them land to replace it west of the Mississippi.  The Indians never agreed to the act, but had their land taken anyway. Well, the local newspaper surveyed some of Lancaster, Pennsylvania's most influential women, asking them who they thought should be on the face of the $20.  Seems that Harriet Tubman, a slave who escaped slavery and helped many others do the same through the Underground Railroad which passed through Lancaster, PA.  

Eleanor Roosevelt

She also was considered the primier feminist of our country.  She was followed by Eleanor Rossevelt, Ida B. Wells, Frances Perkins, Alice Paul, Clara Barton, Susand B. Anthony, Abigail Adams with one vote for Ronald Reagan.  This vote was from one of Lancaster's most influential women who was asked to vote for a woman.  Seems this Republican State Representative values men more than woman for the $20.  There have been other men who grace our paper money who maybe should be replaced with a woman.  How can we forget that Ulysses Grant led this country into a depression.  

Wilma Mankiller

Does he deserve to be replaced also?  A national online campaign has the four finalists as Wilma Mankiller, the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation; civil rights icon Rosa Parks (my own personal choice); Eleanor Rossevelt, diplomat and first lady; and Harriet Tubman.  Womenon20s.org say that the best way to start the 2020 centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment - which gave woman the right to vote - would be to put a woman on the $20 bill.  The Treasury secretary changes the designs of currency regularly to try and prevent counterfeiting, but the faces on the bills hasn't changed since 1929.  Don't you think it's abut time?  I do!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.