Thanks to the brilliant marketing and campaigning of the nonprofit organization Women on 20s, the US Treasury Department announced it will put women on American currency for the first time in more than a century — and an African American woman for the first time in the nation’s history.

Harriet Tubman, a former slave and leader of the Abolitionist movement, will replace the slave-owning President Andrew Jackson on the front of the new $20 bill. And, suffragist leaders will appear on the backs of redesigned $5 and $10 bills.

The change  for the $20 bill takes effect in 2020 — the 100^th anniversary of the passage of the 19^th Amendment giving women the right to vote in the U.S.

Change is long overdue. The seven white men on the seven US bank notes in general circulation today had all died by 1885. More than half of American history has happened since then. No wonder some folks refer to these bills as ‘dead presidents’.

Agitator readers interested in effective advocacy campaigns should pay special and detailed attention to the Women On 20s effort. Go to its ultra-clean, easy-to-navigate website and see some of the campaign’s features for yourself.

Harriet Tubman was selected for the $20 bill thanks in no small part to an online election format developed by Women On 20s. The election consisted of two rounds of voting to let the public choose a nominee from an original slate of 15 inspiring American women in history.

The former slave and Abolitionist was chosen from among a field consisting of Alice Paul, Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, Sojourner Truth, Rachel Carson, Rosa Parks, Barbara Jordan, Margaret Sanger, Patsy Mink, Clara Barton, Frances Perkins, Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. You can see the results of the voting here.

Over a period of ten weeks, more than 600,000 people cast votes and Harriet Tubman emerged as the winner. On May 12, 2015, Women On 20s presented a petition to President Obama informing him of the results of the election and encouraging him to instruct Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew to use his authority to make this change in time to have a new bill in circulation before the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in 2020.

Yesterday, the Secretary of the Treasury delivered the victory!

The Women on 20s campaign used a wide range of media to accomplish its goal, from press outreach and the hashtags we used in this post’s headline, to grassroots campaigning and petitions. And check out the YouTube video for the People’s Petition for Historic Change below.

Thanks to their work and the more prominent recognition of women ‘disrupters’ in American history, maybe it will get a little easier to see the way to full political, social and economic equality for women.

Roger

P.S. Even the perennially popular  Saturday Night Live got in on the campaign. Take a look.