A Woman on the $20 Bill? Here Are the Finalists

If you could put a woman’s face on the $20 bill, who would you choose? A grassroots campaign to replace President Andrew Jackson with a woman on our nation’s new $20 bill is gaining steam.

The nonprofit Women on 20s announced that more than 256,000 voters cast ballots in the primary round to select from 15 candidates. (To read about narrowing the list from 100 initial nominees, click here). Three candidates who took the top spots for the final run-off were Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt and Harriet Tubman.

Cherokee Nation Chief Wilma Mankiller was also added to the final ballot, according to Women on 20s, “because of strong public sentiment that people should have the choice of a Native American to replace Andrew Jackson.”

Parks, who famously refused to give up her bus seat to a white man, is known as the mother of the civil rights movement.

Former First Lady Roosevelt was a vocal champion of civil and women’s rights.

Tubman, who helped more than 300 slaves escape to freedom as an Underground Railroad conductor, was also active in the women’s suffrage movement.

Mankiller was the first elected female chief of a Native American nation in modern times.

You can read more about each of the four candidates here.

“Our hope is to generate an overwhelming people’s mandate for a new $20 bill, to be issued in time for the 100th anniversary in 2020 of the constitutional amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote,” Women on 20s said.

After a finalist is selected, the group plans to ask President Obama to start the process of getting a woman on the $20 bill.

Obama seems open to the idea.

“A young girl wrote to ask me why aren’t there any women on our currency, and then she gave me like a long list of possible women to put on our dollar bills and quarters and stuff — which I thought was a pretty good idea,” Obama said while speaking on the economy in Kansas City, Missouri.

According to Women on 20s, “the secretary of the Treasury may order new portraits and designs shown on United States currency.” Lawmakers may also order a portrait change by an act of Congress.

You can click here to cast your vote. Voting will be open for the next few weeks.

Which of the four women finalists would you like to see on the $20 bill? Share your comments below or on our Facebook page.