Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Why It Was Always Going to Be Tubman on Our Money
Why It Was Always Going to Be Tubman on Our Money
Feb 1, 2026 4:04 PM

Last Summer I predicted that Harriet Tubman would be replacing Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill. I was almost right. She’ll be replacing Andrew Jackson.

The U.S. Treasury announced last year that the $10 bill is the next paper currency scheduled for a major redesign — a process that takes years because of the anti-counterfeiting technology involved — and will feature a “notable woman.”

The new ten will be unveiled in 2020, the 100th anniversary of the passage of the nineteenth amendment, which gave women the right to vote. As the Treasury explained, “The passage of the nineteenth amendment granted women their right to fully participate in the system our country was founded on—a government by the people, a democracy.”

In a post last June I wrote: “I’m almost certain they already know who Treasury is going to choose: It’s going to beHarriet Tubman.” Instead, it was Jackson who got demoted to the back of the currency while Tubman will take his placeon the front.

I think the Treasury made the right decision. As the first Treasury secretary, Hamilton deserved to stick around on the $10 (leaders of the women’s suffragemovement will be featured on the other side). But it was time for a woman to join the men on our money and, based on the criteria used for consideration, Tubman is a solid choice. She was not only an abolitionist, she served inthe Civil War as a Union spy and became the only woman during that conflict to lead men into a battle.

Unfortunately, fans of Tubman will have to wait awhile longer to see her new portrait: the $20 isn’t scheduled for a redesign until 2030.

In the meantime, here was my reasoning from last year on why Tubman was all but inevitable based on the Treasury’scriteria for a “noble woman”candidate:

She will be dead, and pro-democracy — A primary criteria for getting your face on America’s money is that you have to be dead. Plenty of famous women meet that criteria, of course, but that’s the first hurdle. The second one sets a higher bar. As the Treasury website notes:

Democracy is the theme for the next redesigned series and the Secretary will select a woman recognized by the public who was a champion for democracy in the United States. The person should be iconic and have made a significant contribution to — or impact on — protecting the freedoms on which our nation was founded.

That requirement narrows the field considerably.

She will have name recognition — If you didn’t hear her name mentioned in history class in junior high, you likely won’t see her name linked to the new ten.

She will not be Susan B. Anthony — Anthony seems like she would be the obvious choice, considering her connection to the 19thAmendment. And she has plenty of champions (such as Dominic Bouck, O.P. at First Things) who would love to see her share the bill with Alexander Hamilton. But there is also an obvious reason it won’t be Anthony: she was already on the dollar.

The Susan B. Anthony dollar was a dollar coin minted from 1979 to 1981 and again in 1999. The public hated it—not Anthony, just the coin (which was too similar in size to the quarter). But Anthony had her shot. The Treasury Department is not going to waste this historic opportunity to simply shift Anthony’s visage from a coin to a paper bill.

She will be African American — To date, only two women have appeared on U.S. paper currency. One was white (Martha Washington) and the other was Native American (Pocahontas). It’s time for an African-American woman.

In light of those tentative requirements, the field is narrowed to only three candidates: Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth.

Parks has been called the “mother of the civil rights movement” because of her role in the Montgomery bus boycott. She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993, was presented the Medal of Freedom Award by President Bill Clinton in 1996 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999, and after her death on October 24, 2005, Congress approved a resolution allowing her body to lie in honor in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. She’s a solid contender, but she’s too current a figure.

At the time of the currency unveiling, Parks will have been gone from this life for 15 years. Assuming that America will continue to exist and that Bitcoin won’t replace paper money, there will be plenty of opportunities in the future to honor Parks by putting her on our money.

That leaves only Tubman and Truth.

Both Tubman and Truth were former slaves who became abolitionists and later fought for women’s suffrage alongside Susan B. Anthony. Both are the very models of “inclusive democracy”, which make both the primary contenders for placement on the new ten.

I could have titled this article “Why Sojourner Truth Will Be on the $10 Bill”—and I almost did. If Truth were chosen over Tubman it’d be only a mild surprise. But Tubman gains a slight advantage because of her name recognition.

Tubman is better known because her role in the abolition movement is slightly more impressive. Truth gained prominence mainly as a speaker while Tubman was active in helping slaves escape to freedom. The abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison even dubbed Tubman “Moses” because of the way she led her people out of bondage.

For these reasons, Harriet Tubman will be the one sharing space on the new ten with Alexander Hamilton, the only Founding Father on our currency who never owned slaves.

How sure am I this will be Treasurer Lew’s choice? Almost certain. If I were a betting man I’d bet you a $10 it’ll be Tubman.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Samuel Gregg on ‘Perverted Religion’ and Free Expression
Horrific acts of violence and the dangers of free expression have been on everyone’s minds lately. After the attack on Charlie Hebdo, the ongoing terrorism by Boko Haram, and countless other attacks and atrocities, mentators are discussing violence in the name of Islam and limits on free expression. One of these people is Pope Francis, who discussed the Charlie Hebdo attack during a flight to the Philippines. Another, who actually made the remarks almost ten years ago at the University...
Vox Connects the Dots Between Inequality and Envy
Imagine that the wealth of both the poorest and richest Americans were to double overnight (and the middle class wealth stayed the same). Would the poor be better off? Most of us would agree they would be. But those obsessed with e and wealth inequality would fret thatthe poor were in even worse shape than before sinceinequality just got much, much worse. The difference in opinion is based on ourchoice of perspective. If you care about the only inequality that...
10 Quotes for Religious Freedom Day
Thomas Jefferson wanted what he considered to be his three greatest achievements to be listed on his tombstone. The inscription, as he stipulated, reads “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.” Today we celebrate the 229th anniversary of one of those great creations: the passage, in 1786, of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. Each year, the President declares January...
Chinese Government Tries To Stay Ahead Of Child Traffickers
Underground delivery rooms. Babies smuggled in designer handbags. Criminal gangs kidnapping pregnant women. It’s all part of a growing concern in China: child trafficking. According to CNN, Chinese authorities rescued 37 newborns and one toddler this week, arresting over 100 people in the process. The operation included the raid of an “underground delivery room” in an abandoned warehouse, where one baby was found near death under a large pile of blankets. It is believed that the children were going to...
‘Dual-Status’ Youths: Broken Kids, Broken System
“Status.” Webster’s defines it as “high position or rank in society.” Yet for many young people, this could not be further from the truth. In the language of social workers and court systems, “dual-status” youths are young people who are involved in the juvenile justice system and child welfare system. Case in point: She was born to an incarcerated mother. She was repeatedly abused by relatives with whom she spent much of her early life. By the time she turned...
MLK on Law and Morality
Earlier this year, UCLA made available for the first time the audio of a speech from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. given just over a month after the march from Selma to Montgomery. On April 27, 1965, King addressed a number of topics, including debate surrounding the Voting Rights Act. At one point in the speech, King stops to address a number of “myths” that are often heard and circulated, and one of these is of perennial interest,...
God Is With You in the Workplace (Whether You Know It or Not)
This post is part of a symposium on vocation between the PatheosFaith and Work Channeland the PatheosEvangelical Channel, and originally appeared at the Oikonomia blog, a resource fromthe Acton Institute on faith, work, and economics. We’ve seen a renewed focus among Christians on the deeper value, meaning, and significance of our daily work, leading to lots of reflection on how we might “find God in the workplace.” As a result, Christians are ing ever more attentive to things like vocation...
Love Wins: Trafficked, Retrafficked, Saved
International Justice Mission (IJM) is an NGO working globally to prevent violence, reform corrupt systems, protect and promote rule of law and sustain changes. That’s their mission, summed up in a few brief words. What it really means is that girls like Suhana are saved. Suhana was forced into India’s sex trade, not once, but twice. IJM did not give up on her. Hear her powerful story. ...
Great Religious Films On Netflix
The film industry quite often gets religion wrong. Either the pletely misunderstands faith (think Noah and the recent Exodus), or the movies are so saccharine that theaters ought to offer diabetes testing for movie-goers on the way out of the theater (Left Behind and anything else Kirk Cameron has been involved with). This is really too bad, because movies are an art form that have the power to move us, to make us think, to ponder more deeply critical questions...
Supreme Court Defends Freedom in Landmark Religious Liberty Case
Can prison bureaucrats arbitrarily ban peaceful religious practices? Whether they should, they certainly have done so. As The Becket Fund points out, many prisons have barred Jewish inmates from wearing yarmulkes, denied Catholics access to the sacraments munion and confession, and shut down Evangelical Bible studies. Prisons have frequently even banned religious objects, such as rosaries, prayer shawls, and yarmulkes. In response to these and many other displays of religious suppression, an overwhelmingly bipartisan Congress enacted a landmark civil rights...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved