The world still hasn’t see a $20 bill with Harriet Tubman’s face on it, but there are now new coins honoring the legendary woman who helped hundreds of slaves escape the south.
The new money includes $5 gold coins, $1 silver coins, and half dollar coins that commemorate the bicentennial of Harriet’s birth. According to the U.S Mint, this is the first time the agency has honored her with coins. In 2022, the Biden Administration passed the Harriet Tubman Commemorative Coin Act, which allows the U.S. Mint to issue the money.
The silver dollar design shows Harriet Tubman as the “conductor” of the Underground Railroad, while the half-coins display the historical figure as a spy and Union nurse during the Civil War. The $5 coin reveals an older Harriet “gazing confidently into the distance and towards the future.”
However, the release of these new coins has reignited the discussion around Harriet replacing Andrew Jackson, former President of the United States, on the $20 bill. The Biden Administration previously stated that it was looking into what’s been causing the delay on the transition and options to speed up the process.
Harriet’s family, specifically her great-great-grand niece has mixed feelings about her ancestor being printed on the new currency. Ernestine “Tina” Martin Wyatt told CNN, “the coins are fabulous, but that $20 bill, for me, represents something greater about who she was and what she gave to the United States.” She went on to say, “a $20 bill, you’re exchanging that all the time, you’re seeing that all the time … That’s where the symbolism really is important because symbolism in this country started with that dollar bill.”
The new coins can be purchased online or in-person at U.S. Mint stores.
