The Treasury Department has ended plans to place abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, bringing an apparent halt to a proposal that has been under consideration for nearly a decade.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the decision during an interview with Spectrum News on Monday when asked whether the department was still moving forward with the redesign.
“We are not, at present,” Bessent said.
Bessent did not provide an explanation for why the Treasury Department decided to abandon the proposal.
The announcement comes just weeks after reports surfaced that President Donald Trump could become the first living person to appear on U.S. currency since 1866.
In May, The Washington Post reported on efforts to place Trump’s image on a $250 bill. Under a law enacted in 1866, living individuals cannot appear on U.S. currency.
While discussing the proposed $250 bill, Bessent also addressed the process required to make changes to American currency.
“The 250 requires an act of Congress, because you can’t have a living person [on U.S. currency], and it was to commit [sic] – for the 250th anniversary,” Bessent told Spectrum News.
He added that redesigning existing denominations is a lengthy process.
“For us to change an existing bill, whether it’s $1 through $100 takes many years in advance,” Bessent said.
The effort to feature Tubman on the $20 bill dates back to 2016 during the Obama administration. At that time, the proposal called for replacing Founding Father Alexander Hamilton on the front of the $20 bill with the famed Underground Railroad figure.
The original objective was to introduce the redesigned bill by 2020.
That timeline changed during President Trump’s first administration, when the redesign was delayed until 2028. The postponement sparked criticism, including from one of Tubman’s descendants.
In 2019, Ernestine Wyatt, identified as a relative of Tubman, criticized the decision in comments to CNN.
She argued that delaying the redesign “smacks of racist rhetoric.”
“I think it’s just a nice way of trying to say we don’t want this, we’re not going to have this, under any circumstances will we have this,” Wyatt said at the time. “It’s just another delay and a diversion for what’s going on.”
Bessent’s latest comments indicate that the Treasury Department is no longer pursuing the proposal, at least for now.
The secretary did not elaborate on whether the decision is permanent or whether the department could revisit the issue in the future. He also did not provide additional details beyond confirming that the proposal is not currently moving forward.
Following Bessent’s remarks, the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Mediaite regarding the decision to end the long-running effort to place Tubman’s image on the nation’s $20 bill.
The decision marks the latest development in a proposal that has spanned multiple presidential administrations and generated debate since it was first announced in 2016.
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