Donald Trump Shelves Harriet Tubman $20 Bill While Using Nicki Minaj As Celebrity Cover

The decision to drop the Harriet Tubman $20 bill tells you exactly what this administration values. Harriet Tubman was not just a historical figure. She was a freedom fighter, abolitionist, spy, nurse and one of the bravest Americans to ever live. Putting her on the $20 bill would have been more than symbolic. It would have been a recognition that American history does not begin and end with presidents, generals and slaveholders.

But of course, that was the problem. Tubman was Black. She was a woman. And she fought slavery. She exposed the lie that freedom was handed down from powerful men instead of seized by the people, who they tried to crush. For an administration obsessed with rolling back diversity, rewriting history and flattering Donald Trump’s ego, she was never going to be a comfortable choice.

And the contrast is almost too ridiculous to parody. Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill is suddenly too complicated, too slow, too difficult. But a potential Trump-themed $250 bill? Somehow, that can be treated like a priority.

Here is what USA Today reported:

The U.S. Treasury Department is no longer planning to put anti-slavery crusader Harriet Tubman on a $20 bill, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has told Spectrum News.

“We are not at present,” Bessent said when asked in a Monday interview if Treasury was still planning to move ahead with the decade-old plan. Bessent did not elaborate, and a Treasury spokesperson declined to comment beyond Bessent’s remark.

The Obama administration announced in 2016 that Tubman, who was born into slavery in the early 1820s and went on to help hundreds of slaves escape, would replace seventh U.S. President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.

Then-Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the decision was the result of thousands of responses received from Americans. Tubman would have been the first African American on the face of U.S. paper currency.

During his first presidential campaign, Donald Trump, who has since sought to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, called the move to replace Jackson with Tubman “pure political correctness.”

While no new person has been put on U.S. paper currency since 1928, some officials in the current Trump administration have sought to put the Republican president’s face on a proposed $250 bill to mark the United States’ 250th anniversary of independence.

When asked why the Treasury Department is not moving forward with a $20 note with Tubman’s image while making preparations for a $250 bill with Trump’s portrait, Bessent told Spectrum News: “The 250 requires an act of Congress, because you can’t have a living person (on U.S. currency), and it was to commit – for the 250th anniversary.”

Performance Over Progress

Trump’s administration shelving the Harriet Tubman $20 bill in the same week Nicki Minaj was paraded through the White House is almost too on the nose. That is how this game works. Cancel the image of a Black woman who risked her life freeing enslaved people, then platform a celebrity willing to smile beside Trump and help soften the optics. Harriet Tubman represented liberation. Nicki, in this moment, represented access, ego and proximity to power.

It feels like the oldest trick in the book: use a Black person as a cover while attacking Black history. And that is what makes it so shameful. Tubman’s face on the $20 bill was never just about money. It was about replacing Andrew Jackson, a president tied to the forced removal of Native people, with a Black woman who fought slavery and led people to freedom. Dropping that plan sends a message.

Then comes the celebrity photo-op. Suddenly, Trump can point to Nicki and say, “See? I’m not racist.” But representation without principle is not progress. It is just useless decoration meant to appeal to the uncritical masses. This is why so many people are angry. Harriet Tubman risked everything to free people. Meanwhile, some people today will sell out the same legacy for a room, a photo and a compliment from a man whose administration just pushed her image aside.

It is disgusting. It is shameful. And it says everything about the difference between being seen by power and being used by it. They are comfortable keeping Andrew Jackson, the man tied to the Indian Removal Act, on the $20 bill. But Harriet Tubman, a woman who risked her life to lead enslaved people to freedom, is apparently where they draw the line. Of course they do. The racism is not subtle anymore. Neither is the sexism. At this point, they are not even hiding the pattern. They are just counting on people to stop being shocked by it.