A First...

[L Verge]

I'm used to getting suggestions that we try to have Mary Surratt exonerated, but this suggestion is a first:

As some of you may know, there has been mention of replacing Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill with a woman. A Surratt member sent me a recent clipping from a hometown newspaper in which a suggestion is made that Mary Surratt replace President Jackson on the currency symbolizing "the first woman tortured and hanged unjustly - a Christian, innocently involved with the Lincoln conspiracy."

Rosa Parks and Viola Liuzzi were two other possible female contenders for the honor. If the latter's name is not familiar, she was a white woman murdered during the Selma marches by members of the KKK.

[Juan Marrero]

I also read that Eleanor Roosevelt and Wilma Mankiller are in consideration for the "$20 sweepstakes". I am not a huge Andrew Jackson fan, yet I think that it's not right to remove the $20 bill honor. (Yet, it would be ironic if Cherokee Chief Wilma knocks him off).

Would it make it easier or harder for counterfeiters (calling North Korea or perhaps they only make $100 bills) if Jackson was kept but a "parallel" bill added honoring a woman? I would vote, if I had a say in the matter, for Emily Dickinson or even Helen Keller on such currency.

California is also getting close to recalling its Statuary Hall statue of (soon-to-be-saint) Junipero Serra and replacing it with Sally Ride. Having a family connection to one of the Apollo astronauts burned to death in the capsule, I have mixed feelings for the Serra for Ride switch. I don't like these kind of changes because they make the honor seem less serious.

I also learned during our D.C. trip this weekend that my state (NC) has a ready to go statue of Billy Graham for inclusion once he meets the "essential requirement".