Earlier this year, the Obama administration announced that the face of the $10 bill, Alexander Hamilton, will be replaced by a woman – in 2020. But we can’t wait five years to see who it is.
We’ve joined the movie Suffragette’s #Suffragette19 initiative to ask you who you’d like to see on the $10 bill. Choose from these 10 American suffragettes below, or add your own in the comments!
Sojourner Truth (c. 1797-1883)
Born a slave, Truth spent her life working to advance the rights of African Americans and women. Her “Ain’t I A Woman?” speech is just as powerful – and just as necessary – 150 years after she first gave it.
Lucy Stone (1818-1893)
An early suffragist as well as an abolitionist, Stone was the first woman to earn a college degree in Massachusetts and caused a scandal by becoming one of the first women to keep her own name after marriage. She helped initiate the first Women’s Rights Convention, helped establish the Woman’s National Loyal League (which helped abolish slavery with the Thirteenth Amendment) and helped form the American Woman Suffrage Association.
Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)
Susan B. Anthony was a major leader of the women’s suffrage movement, forming the National American Woman Suffrage Association as well as many other organizations. Sadly, she died before women got the right to vote but her work inspired many generations after her. She was the face of the silver dollar coin, but $1 is not enough!
Harriet Tubman (1822-1913)
Harriet Tubman is best known for her work in the abolition movement – after escaping from slavery, she returned to slave states THIRTEEN TIMES and rescued about 70 other slaves. In her later life, she was an active force in the women’s suffrage movement, working alongside Susan B. Anthony and other suffrage leaders while insisting that black women’s voting rights should be equal to white women’s.
Ida B. Wells (1862-1931)
Wells was active in both the Civil Rights and the women’s rights movements- as well as the socialist movement, genomics movement and a skilled investigative journalist. She was busy! Among her many, many accomplishments was the establishment of the first black women’s suffrage organization, the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago – formed in response to the National American Women Suffrage Association’s exclusion of black women.
Lucy Burns (1879-1966)
Burns worked closely with Alice Paul, forming the National Woman’s Party and campaigning for women’s voting rights in both the UK and the US. She was arrested while picketing the White House but continued working for women’s rights from within prison, leading hunger strikes and organizing protests. She is played by Frances O’Connor in Iron Jawed Angels.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)
Eleanor was so much more than FDR’s wife. She worked to expand women’s roles in the workplace, fought against child labor and promoted the civil rights of African Americans, Asian Americans and WWII refugees.
Alice Paul (1885-1977)
Alice Paul was the main leader of the campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment and spent 50 years as the leader of the National Woman’s Party, fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment (which still hasn’t passed!). You may know her as Hilary Swank’s character in Iron Jawed Angels.
Rosa Parks (1913-2005)
Sometimes called “the First Lady Of Civil Rights,” Rosa Parks is much more than the woman who refused to get off the bus because she was tired. She was a NAACP leader, a leader in the Civil Rights movement and, later, active in the Black Power movement. Though the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920, in practicality, that often only applied to white women until the Civil Rights Act made race a protected class in 1964.
Coretta Scott King (1927-2006)
King is also sometimes called “The First Lady Of The Civil Rights Movement.” She spent her life working for the rights of African Americans, women and the LGBT community. She was a vocal supporter of women within Civil Rights movement, writing, “Not enough attention has been focused on the roles played by women in the struggle. By and large, men have formed the leadership in the civil rights struggle but…women have been the backbone of the whole civil rights movement.”
Images via Wikimedia Commons
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