Tubman, Anthony popular choices for $10 bill in Seneca Falls
SENECA FALLS, N.Y. — In the birthplace of the women's rights movement, Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthon were the top picks as people gathered to discuss which woman should be featured on U.S. currency.
U.S. Treasurer Rosa Rios hosted the town hall meeting at historic Wesleyan Chapel, where in July 1848 the first convention on women's rights was held. Although the chapel was full of men and women of all ages, Rios opened the meeting by inviting audience members younger than 21 to sit on stage with her.
“I am especially grateful for the next generation who has joined us here today," Rios said. "This meeting is not about me, it is not about Treasury, it is about them. I am here because of them.”
Rios gave the audience some background on the currency issue, noting that on June 18, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced at the National Archives that a public engagement process had begun to "have a conversation about the redesign on our currency."
"For those of you who may not know," Rios said, "the theme of the family of notes for all denominations is democracy. And, the charge from the secretary was to reach out to the American public and get your thoughts.”
Rios then asked those on stage who they would like to see on the redesigned $10 bill. Harriet Tubman and suffragette leader Susan B. Anthony were the group’s top choices.
For Auburn resident Pauline Copes-Johnson, a great-great-grandniece of abolitionist and Underground Railroad "conductor" Harriet Tubman, the meeting marked a victory for women everywhere.
“I am very proud of my Aunt Harriet and her accomplishments," Copes-Johnson said. "They should choose her because she was the woman who helped change the outcome of the United States. Without her, we would still be in slavery. She traveled multiple times to save people.
"I resent the way my Aunt Harriet was treated," she added. "She took abuse for years and was called a difficult child by her master, but she had it in her mind that she would be free and escape by the Underground Railroad, and that is exactly what she did. I believe it was her courage that helped her escape and then help others.”
While Copes-Johnson said she was excited for Tubman to be recognized, she added, “I would actually like to see her on the $20 bill.”
She wasn’t the only attendee in the room who felt that way.
Barbara Ortiz-Howard, a Westchester County resident and founder of the non-profit group Womenon20s.org handed out makeshift $20 bills featuring Tubman to those in the crowd. Ortiz-Howard felt the meeting was “bogus to a large extent,” saying the Treasury Department originally gave the impression it would be redesigning the $20 bill.
Her organization inspired a national movement this summer that involved holding a poll asking who should replace Jackson on the $20 bill, a man she considers “responsible for a large number of deaths and as a slave trader, needs to go.” The poll gathered over 600,000 voters, with Tubman emerging as the winner.
Emil J. Bove Jr. of Seneca Falls felt the meeting was a “true show of support for women’s history."
“It is astounding to be in this building, where in 1848, people had the audacity to say women were equal,” Bove said.
He is a staunch supporter for Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s face to grace the newly designed $10 bill.
“She is the initiator of the women’s movement and had the audacity to say that women should be allowed to vote," Bove said. "I feel she was the inspiration for all of the women who came after her.”
A variety of women in addition to Tubman and Anthony are being discussed for the redesign, including former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, abolitionist and women's rights advocate Sojourner Truth and civil rights activist Rosa Parks. While there is no date planned to announce the final choice, Lew has said the $10 bill will feature a woman by 2020, the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women's right to vote.
“Who would of thought that in 2015, the federal government is finally talking about putting a woman on currency,” said Ami Ghazala, superintendent of the National Park Service, U.S. Department of Interior. “And it is definitely fitting for the meeting to be happening here at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls.”
The location was chosen at the urging of U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who stated during a July visit to the area, “Seneca Falls — as the birthplace of the women’s equality movement — should be selected to help decide which great American woman would be featured on the redesigned $10 bill.”
When asked if women have waited too long for this moment, Ghazala responded: “What is too long when it comes to women struggling? I am just optimistic and happy that it is finally a conversation.”