Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) speaks at a Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing on substance abuse on July 29, 2015. Photo from SCIA / Flickr
Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) introduced a resolution on Thursday calling for the removal of Andrew Jackson from the $20 bill due to the former president's anti-Indian policies. During the 1830s, Jackson forced tribes to leave their homelands in the southeast and walk the Trail of Tears to present-day Oklahoma. Lankford said "millions" of people were relocated and "thousands" lost their lives along the way. "[T]he forced removal of American Indians by Andrew Jackson and the subsequent inhumane settlement of Indian lands represent a major blight on the proud history of the United States," the resolution states. Lankford said Jackson's image should be replaced by that of a woman. He urged the public to contact the Department of Treasury, which plans to put a woman on the $10 bill. “I support recognition of a historic American woman on the twenty-dollar bill and the removal of Andrew Jackson, since he began the Indian removal policies that forced thousands of American Indians off their ancestral homelands," Lankford said in a press release. Lankford sits on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.
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