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Marian Anderson To Be On $5 Bill

The $5 bill is getting a makeover.

The bill, which now features 16th president Abraham Lincoln, is joining the $10 and $20 in major revamps announced yesterday by the Treasury Department.The bill, which now features 16th president Abraham Lincoln, is joining the $10 and $20 in major revamps announced yesterday by the Treasury Department. The $20 bill will be redesigned to include an image of abolitionist Harriet Tubman on one side and President Andrew Jackson on the other. The $10 bill will include images of suffragists Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Paul, alongside the Treasury building. The front of the new $10 will retain the portrait of Alexander Hamilton.

The $5 bill’s makeover will include images of more modern civil rights leaders. Lincoln’s image will remain on the front but the back of the bill will be redesigned to “honor historic events that occurred at the Lincoln Memorial,” the Treasury Department said. The backside of the bill will feature Martin Luther King Jr., Marian Anderson and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

“Our currency will now tell more of our story and reflect the contributions of women as well as men to our great democracy,” Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said.

In 1939, Roosevelt invited Anderson, a renowned opera singer, to perform on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution denied her permission to sing in front of an integrated audience at Constitutional Hall. The event drew more than 75,000 people.

And, in 1963, King delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech at the same monument. As many as 100,000 people heard the address, which was considered a key moment in the civil rights movement.

King and Anderson will become the first African Americans to be featured on U.S. currency. It is not immediately clear when the new $5 bill will go into circulation.