Put MLK on the $20

(Apologies to those outside USA, for whom this probably won’t make much sense. Today is a Martin Luther King day in the US, a recently adopted national holiday).

The U.S. Mint has been on a program to redesign our currency for a couple of years now, mostly in an effort to make counterfeiting more difficult. This process continues, the authorities recently revealing that they are going to add more colors to the bills, and renew the designs every seven years or so.

Most of our bills feature the faces of the “Fathers of Our Country” such as Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Ben Franklin. But among these portraits one has always stuck out like a sore thumb to me: Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. Frankly, I never thought he was in the same league with the others. And after some reading, I find there is much to dislike about the 7th President:

* A supporter of slavery, he tried to deny abolitionists their first amendment rights
* Responsible for the “Trail of Tears” (Indian Removal Act)
* His first cabinet was broken up by scandal
* First president censured by the U.S Senate
* His economic policies caused the Panic of 1837
* Originated the “spoils system” in federal civil service
* At one time supported traitor Aaron Burr

At the same time as we are all carrying pictures of this racist in our pockets, race relations in this country continue to suffer. And no wonder when our monuments, our institutions and our currency offer mostly white men to us as heroes.

I say, next time they redesign the $20 bill, lets really redesign it. Put the late civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. on the bill instead. I don't think I need to list his merits here.