You may finally see a woman’s face on the $20 bill in the near future.Women on 20s, founded by Barbara Ortiz Howard and Susan Ades Stone, is a nonprofit organization whose main purpose is to get a woman’s face on the next $20 bill by 2020, just in time for the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment which granted women the right to vote.
The campaign aims to convince President Obama to take action—he’s already publicly stated that putting women on our currency is a good idea, which is a positive sign. In order to do this officially, 100,000 votes are needed to petition the White House. If everything goes well, Obama would just have to do tell the Secretary of the Treasury to make the change.
But who should be on the $20? It all comes down to votes. Women on 20 held a caucus with women’s historians and museum curators to come up with a list of 15 candidates. The list includes Alice Paul, Betty Friedian, Shirley Chisholm, Sojourner Truth, Rachel Carson, Rosa Parks, Barbara Jordan, Margaret Sanger, Patsy Mink, Clara Barton, Harriet Tubman, Frances Perkins, Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
You can vote for three women in the primary round. Those who voted in the first round will be contacted via email when the final round begins. The woman who wins the final round will be proposed to Obama.
In an interview with The Huffington Post, Stone said they came up with the idea when they realized that most people in this country were not well-informed about the heroic women of America. “This is not just a campaign about getting women on the $20. That’s our crowning goal, but we really want this to be an educational campaign and a national conversation,” Stone said. “We wanted adults and kids alike to look at these names and think ‘I don’t know enough about this person, and maybe I should find out more.’”
Learn more about the 15 amazing candidates and cast your vote today.
Feature Photo via Yahoo