How would you like to keep a picture of Rachel Carson in your wallet? Womenon20s.com is a new campaign effort to replace our seventh president, Andrew Jackson, with women who have somehow influenced society.
I’m not kidding.
Here’s Tuesday’s CBS News report:
"There's a movement afoot to see that women get their fair share of money."
We can thank Barbara Ortiz Howard for the new effort to boot Jackson from the twenty.
"There are no women on the money and I thought gee this is a crazy omission," said Howard.
That’s when Howard, who works near New York City maintaining apartment buildings, decided it was time for President Jackson to move over.
Why is she targeting our seventh president?
Andrew Jackson was celebrated for his military prowess, for founding the Democratic party and for his simpatico with the common man. But as the seventh president of the United States, he also helped gain Congressional passage of the "Indian Removal Act of 1830" that drove Native American tribes of the Southeastern United States off their resource-rich land and into Oklahoma to make room for white European settlers. Commonly known as the Trail of Tears, the mass relocation of Indians resulted in the deaths of thousands from exposure, disease and starvation during the westward migration. Not okay.
In other words: because of his sinful, racist past.
The Womenon20s list to replace Jackson includes some admirable trailblazers. For instance, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Susan B. Anthony are figures I’d be proud to see on our currency. Yet, there are a few controversial figures included on the list as well - perhaps none more so than Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. Pro-life groups have often exposed Sanger’s obsession with eugenics, which went hand-in-hand with her racist beliefs. (Jackson doesn’t seem so bad now, huh?) Oh yeah, and the organization she is responsible for is now the country’s biggest abortion provider. As for other candidates, I’m sure more than a few people would grimace to carry around bills featuring radical environmentalist Rachel Carson.
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I’m all for acknowledging the amazing efforts of our country’s most iconic female figures. But why do we have to kick one of our presidents to the curb? Surely, there are other ways to notice our female heroines without undermining the accomplishments of our Founding Fathers and Commanders-in-Chief.
Womenon20s is asking people to vote for who they want to see on the twenty dollar bill. Once they’ve narrowed it down to one, they’ll ask President Obama to put the winner on a new bill by 2020, which will mark the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage.
I doubt their campaign will make it past the survey, but if Sanger happens to make it onto the twenty, let’s just say I’ll be getting a whole lot more credit card statements.
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