We, the undersigned Americans, do hereby affix our names to this Petition to support Harriet Tubman’s likeness being placed on the twenty-dollar bill in place of Andrew Jackson. More importantly, the likeness being proposed by the United States government is an embarrassment to her memory; therefore, we sign this petition to support a portrait created by the American artist, Karl Wilkes, of Columbia, South Carolina, to be used instead of the proposed government likeness.

There are several reasons for this objection. The proposed likeness by the United States government illustrates Ms. Tubman as an older, overweight, African American woman that denudes the reality of the young, vibrant, energetic, and physically capable woman that secreted slaves, via the Underground Railroad, from captivity through harrowing circumstances to their ultimate freedom. The government likeness serves to denigrate African American women to a status no better than Aunt Jemima on a box of grits.

We resolve that Harriet Tubman was a dynamic woman of American History, and that Karl Wilkes’ portrait of her illustrates that to the apex of the American vision