We the Men

Amidst the flurry of headlines about the Trump administration’s first weeks in power, who will notice that the federal government’s largest agency no longer celebrates Black History Month or Women’s History Month? The Department of Defense’s January 31 guidance declaring “Identity Months Dead at DoD” may have been lost in the news cycle.

But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took the time to make this change because commemorations are important. They shape how Americans understand the past, think about the present, and envision the future. That is why the Trump administration has already launched its plans for marking America’s semiquincentennial in 2026. President Donald Trump himself chairs the task force.

Although the Trump administration is unlikely to acknowledge it, America’s commemorative landscape remains starkly uneven. Almost 250 years after the Declaration of Independence proclaimed “that all men are created equal,” only three women made a recent list of the 50 most frequently commemorated people in America’s public monuments. In comparison, the list includes 44 white men, many of them slaveholders. Congress has never designated a legal public holiday—the kind that closes federal offices—to celebrate an important woman in American history.

Reformers have been fighting for generations to expand America’s commemorations. Decades after the creation of Black History Month and Women’s History Month, efforts to include all Americans in the nation’s commemorations have had limited success—largely because these efforts continue to face vehement opposition.

Trump joined that opposition long before his current presidential term, speaking out against placing Harriet Tubman’s image on the $20 bill.

Only two women have ever appeared on America’s paper currency. Martha Washington graced the front of a $1 silver certificate that the United States first issued in 1886. Pocahontas knelt for baptism on the back of a $20 bill first issued in 1863.

Many Americans have noticed women’s absence. After years of activism from women in and out of Congress, the Obama administration announced a plan in 2016 to redesign the $20 bill, with Tubman replacing President Andrew Jackson on the front.

At the time, Trump was pursuing the Republican nomination for President. He immediately denounced the decision to place Tubman on the twenty as “pure political correctness,” as if Tubman did not merit such prominent recognition. In contrast, Trump insisted that Jackson had “a great history.”

To put Trump’s claims in context: Jackson was a slaveholder who removed Native American tribes from their lands. Tubman was an abolitionist and suffragist who freed herself and hundreds of others from bondage before becoming a Union scout, spy, and nurse during the Civil War. Each historical figure foregrounds different aspects of America’s past. To my mind, Tubman’s record is far worthier of celebration.

Trump, however, declared in 2016 that “it would be more appropriate” to have Tubman’s image on “another denomination,” suggesting “maybe we do the two dollar bill or we do another bill.” If you have rarely seen a $2 bill, there is a reason for that. The two is the least-used bill.

After Trump became President in 2017, his Treasury Department delayed introduction of the new $20 bill and spent years repeatedly refusing to indicate whether the redesigned twenty would feature Tubman.

One of Trump’s former White House staffers published a tell-all memoir in 2018. She recounted Trump’s reaction when she gave him a memo in 2017 about placing Tubman on the twenty. Trump reportedly looked at a photograph of Tubman and asked: “You want to put that face on the twenty-dollar bill?” The question implied that Tubman did not look like someone who belonged in that place of honor, or did not look like someone Trump found physically attractive, or both.

After Trump’s defeat in 2020, the Biden administration reported that it was committed to placing Tubman’s portrait on the front of the twenty. However, Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election has made that commemoration uncertain again.

America’s Constitution purports to speak for “We the People.” But too many of our commemorations include only We the Men. That usually means white men. Amidst the many other struggles that will mark the Trump presidency, it is well worth fighting to include all of us in the stories America tells about itself. The celebrations for the 250th anniversary of the United States are just one year away.

_{Featured image by Ben Mater via Unsplash.}