Obama Behind Move to Put Harriet Tubman on $20 Bill

Now that Harriet Tubman is set to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, some are questioning the motivation behind it. 

As it turns out, President Obama  orchestrated the campaign. In 2014, Obama said a young girl sent him a letter saying more women should be on U.S. currency.  He called it “a good idea.” Media also floated the idea that the honor should go to to Tubman.

The Associated Press reported Thursday the girl is a fifth-grader from Massachusetts named Sofia. And, as chance would have it, her parents have asked that her full name not be used.  

“Sofia says Tubman risked her life to save others,” the AP reported.

It wouldn’t be the first time the government has used children to promote a political agenda. In 2013, Obama was pictured with children as he pushed for new gun control laws, as seen on NPR.org. Children had reportedly written letters to him about the need for stricter gun control laws.

The iconic Tubman is known for escaping slavery in 1849 and  leading hundreds of slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad, a network of safe houses and passageways. Tubman was also a “union spy who oversaw a Special Operations unit of sorts, according to numerous accounts, including one by the U.S. Army,” the Washington Post reported.

Presidential hopeful Donald Trump was quick to weigh-in on the move. He told CNN he thinksTubman is “fantastic.” But he added that having her replace Jackson on the curency is “pure political correctness.”

David Knight of Infowars.com also questioned it.

“I would not go so far as to say Jackson was a tremendous president,” Knight said in a video report. “He did a lot of really good things.”

One of the things he did right was his fight against the Federal Reserve and the stranglehold it would have on America. But Jackson was no saint.

“What he did to the Cherokee Nation was horrendous,” Knight said. “We don’t need to make any excuses for Andrew Jackson and the Cherokee Nation, just like we don’t need to make any excuses for the founders when it comes to slavery.”

But why Tubman?

“She was known for running the Underground Railroad,” said Knight in his tongue-in-cheek-explanation. “Now the only thing I can think of, is that maybe it’s because we’re being railroaded by an underground government that is putting us into slavery, not away from slavery. So maybe it is a fitting person to put on there for the 21^st Century.”

Tubman could have bumped Alexander Hamilton from the $10 bill. But Hamilton has been glorified in a new Broadway musical.  

“I think it’s mainly because of this new play being done on Broadway,” said Knight. “They have revitalized him in this show, the Broadway musical, Hamilton.”

The play is hailed as a cultural and historical “reimagining.”

USA Today reported: ”Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the about-face came in response to an unexpected show of support for Hamilton in the weeks after he announced that plan last June — a response fueled, in part, by the popularity of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical based on Hamilton’s life by Lin-Manuel Miranda.”

Lew added:  ”What we’ve been doing on the currency and what they’ve been doing on the show were really quite complementary.”

What an elaborate mind game. It doesn’t sound like history being reimagined. It sounds more like history being re-written, much like what happened in George Orwell’s novel, 1984. 

Miranda has said, “We’re telling a story of old, dead white men,” said Knight. “But we’re using actors of color. And that makes the story more immediate, more accessible…And they insist that the founder fathers be played by people of color – non-whites – and women.”

Hamilton, who has become trans-racial through the magic of Broadway, gets to stay on the currency.

“Andrew Jackson, however, shut down the second central bank,” Knight said. “He fought them. He did not allow them to renew the charter.”

Jackson will literally be put out of circulation.

Other  changes in currency images are expected to follow.

The backside of the $10 will feature figures from the women’s suffrage movement, including “Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Paul,” USA Today reported.

Jackson will move to the back of the $20 bill. An image of Jackson on horseback is expected to be used.

Changing the pictures on currency is a long process and could take as long as 10 years, according to reports.

Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNd55cdgsZc 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/04/20/harriet-tubman-was-more-than-an-underground-railroad-icon-she-was-a-civil-war-spy-hero/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/04/20/report-lew-considered-anthony-10-bill/83274530/
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/girl-wrote-obama-celebrates-tubman-20-bill-38582059

Photo: Library of Congress, public domain