THE PEOPLE CHANGE. WHY SHOULDN'T THEIR MONEY?

JUSTICE · ECONOMIC JUSTICE

Published by Langhorne P. Breedlove

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2026 · 12:27 AM ET

Tags: U.S. Currency · Public History · Treasury · Accessibility · American Identity

Dear fellow American proletariat: Most Americans have never voted on who appears on the money they carry. A portrait travels from cash register to pocket to laundry machine and back again, and eventually becomes so familiar that we mistake a design decision for a law of nature. One could be forgiven for assuming the Treasury received a marble tablet from Mount Sinai bearing instructions for the twenty-dollar bill.

American Proletariat proposes a public, historically rigorous redesign of the people and stories honored on circulating U.S. money. Not a bonfire of old banknotes. Not an annual celebrity popularity contest. A deliberate reconsideration of which Americans receive the most repeated civic recognition in everyday life—and of what ordinary people need their currency to do.

THE MANDATE

Establish a transparent, recurring review of the portraits and historical imagery on federal circulating notes and coins. Invite historians, artists, educators, disabled cash users, Tribal representatives, workers, small-business cash handlers, numismatists, and the broader public to contribute nominations and evidence. Prioritize historically documented public contributions across abolition, labor, democracy, science, public service, cultural achievement, and civil rights. No person receives a place merely because a political leader likes them, and no person's inclusion should falsely suggest a flawless life.

Maintain legal tender status for existing currency, preserve anti-counterfeiting and payment-machine reliability, and coordinate any new imagery with the security redesign schedule. Currency is a practical instrument first, a public history gallery second. A bill that celebrates liberty but cannot be identified by a blind shopper has missed the assignment.

ROOTS & HISTORY

American coin design began long before the modern banknote lineup. Congress established the United States Mint in 1792; the minting of coins and federal production of paper currency developed under different statutes and administrative systems. In the nineteenth century, the Treasury issued paper notes with changing portraits, including a $1 United States Note featuring Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase in 1862. George Washington first appeared on a $1 United States Note in 1869, and the current $1 Federal Reserve note design dates to 1963. (Sources 01, 02)

The portrait tradition is therefore historical, not immutable. Congress has changed the legal framework, and Treasury has changed designs. The American question is not whether a currency design may change. It has. The question is what democratic and technical standards should govern the next change.

The country's 250th-anniversary coin program is a contemporary example of public history expressed through circulating money. The U.S. Mint announced 2026 designs including a Liberty-themed dime and five quarters commemorating national history, under authorization from the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020. The Secretary of the Treasury approved the designs through the applicable review process. (Source 03)

TODAY · WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing currently produces $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100 Federal Reserve notes. The agency states that previously issued U.S. currency remains legal tender, regardless of the design date. So the arrival of a new portrait would not require Americans to exchange every old bill by Friday afternoon, regardless of what an especially inventive rumor might suggest. (Source 04)

The design of modern banknotes is inseparable from security. BEP describes a coordinated process involving Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the Secret Service, with years of testing for counterfeit deterrence, manufacturability, and compatibility with cash-handling equipment. Its published redesign sequence anticipates work on the $10, $50, $20, $5, and $100 notes, subject to technical developments. A symbolic redesign that disrupts that sequence without a security plan could impose unnecessary costs. (Source 05)

Accessibility is equally concrete. Treasury's Meaningful Access Program includes high-contrast numerals, plans for tactile features on notes that can legally be changed, and a currency-reader program for blind and visually impaired users. Paper money should be usable without relying on a stranger to tell someone whether a note is five dollars or fifty. (Source 06)

Production scale matters. The Federal Reserve reported about 56.6 billion U.S. notes in circulation at year-end 2025. Its 2025 currency operating budget was approximately $1.04 billion, with different variable printing costs across denominations. Neither figure is the price of the AP proposal. Both illustrate why changing the design of circulating currency is more complicated than commissioning a handsome portrait and locating the nearest industrial printer. (Sources 07, 08)

THE LEGAL PATH

Federal law at 31 U.S.C. § 5114 requires that only a deceased person's portrait appear on United States paper currency and securities, with the person's name below the portrait. It also requires the national motto on currency. AP can propose different portrait choices under existing law, but placing a living person on a paper note would require changing that prohibition. (Source 09)

The $1 note faces an additional obstacle: recurring appropriations restrictions prohibit its redesign. BEP says it has no plans to redesign that note and cites the restriction explicitly. A redesign covering every denomination would therefore require Congress to revisit the applicable prohibition; a Treasury press conference would not be enough. (Source 02)

Coin design follows other statutory programs and procedures. The U.S. Mint describes review by the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee and the Commission of Fine Arts, with final selections by the Secretary of the Treasury under relevant authorizations. AP should not treat coins and paper notes as though they were legally identical objects merely because both fit in a pocket. (Source 10)

THE PLAN

01 · BUILD A PUBLIC HISTORY STANDARD

Create an independent, time-limited design commission, with public hearings and published nomination criteria. Require sourced biographies that describe achievements, historical consequences, conflicts, and competing interpretations. Evaluate candidates against clearly stated criteria rather than demanding that every nominee satisfy an impossible standard of personal perfection. Names and historical images should be reviewed for cultural accuracy, permission issues where relevant, and consequences for affected communities.

02 · CHOOSE STORIES, NOT JUST FACES

Invite proposals showing social movements, constitutional milestones, scientific work, cultural labor, Native nations, infrastructure, and places alongside individual portraits. Consider reverse-side designs that broaden the historical narrative without requiring every denomination to be a one-person monument. The commission should openly weigh the competing arguments for keeping recognizable figures, replacing them, or mixing portrait and nonportrait designs.

03 · MAKE CASH ACCESSIBLE & SECURE

Integrate tactile, high-contrast, and other accessible denomination cues with the engineering program already underway. Test designs with blind and low-vision cash users, banks, cash-intensive businesses, vending-machine operators, and counterfeit specialists. Publish accessibility criteria and results without disclosing sensitive anti-counterfeiting features.

04 · PHASE DESIGNS THROUGH EXISTING CURRENCY CYCLES

Use planned security redesigns where feasible rather than treating every existing note as defective overnight. Keep older notes valid, publish bilingual and accessible public guidance where appropriate, give businesses reasonable machine-update schedules, and monitor fraud and confusion. Any proposed alteration to the $1 bill must first resolve the congressional restriction.

05 · REQUIRE ACCOUNTABILITY, NOT A PRESIDENTIAL FAN CLUB

Disclose nominations, meeting records, conflicts, contracts, design competition rules, and reasons for selections. Protect historical judgments from direct retaliation or reward by current officeholders. A system in which the incumbent can print flattering portraits of political allies is not a celebration of the republic; it is campaign merchandise with a serial number.

THE TEN-YEAR LEDGER

YEAR ONE · ESTIMATE PENDING. Compare current-law security redesign and printing budgets with a narrowly defined proposal. Separately estimate commission staffing, archival research, public consultation, artists and design competitions, legal review, accessibility testing, engineering changes, banknote-machine testing, and public education. Count only incremental costs attributable to AP's proposed changes rather than charging the entire currency-production budget to a new portrait.

YEARS TWO THROUGH TEN · ESTIMATE PENDING. Forecast incremental note and coin design expenses by denomination and year, production and equipment modification, machine compatibility, ongoing accessibility measures, communications, legacy-currency handling, and any avoided costs from aligning with scheduled redesigns. Use low, central, and high cases with a documented discounting and inflation method. Identify the paying entity—Treasury, the Mint, the Federal Reserve System, or other parties—for each cost.

For perspective, the Federal Reserve's audited 2025 statements reported about $1.125 billion in currency-related costs across production, shipping, research, quality assurance, and education. This is a baseline context, not a forecast that redesigning portraits costs $1.125 billion, nor evidence that commemorative coin sales would finance the program. The proposal needs a genuine incremental ten-year estimate. (Source 11)

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Public commemoration is contested. Many Americans may regard removing a familiar historical figure as erasing history; others may regard retaining certain imagery as honoring exclusion. A credible process needs historically accurate educational materials and a public explanation of why selections are made—not a declaration that disagreement itself proves bad faith.

Cost and timing can also go badly. Changing a portrait during an unfinished anti-counterfeiting upgrade could require retesting, equipment changes, and confusing parallel communications. Politicians could use nominations for patronage, or a commission could become so cautious that it spends years selecting the safest possible picture of a tree. Requiring fixed deadlines, open evidence, independent review, and public reporting makes the tradeoffs visible.

No redesign changes the purchasing power of the dollar by itself. Better representation on money is not a substitute for fair wages, sound banking, or price stability. Calling it Economic Justice should mean we recognize currency as both a public economic instrument and a statement about whose contributions the nation has chosen to recognize.

MEASURING SUCCESS

Measure design-process participation and diversity of documented submissions; historical accuracy and independent review; public understanding of new imagery; accessibility outcomes for blind and visually impaired users; acceptance rates in cash-handling equipment; counterfeit incidents; incremental spending against the ten-year budget; and whether older notes continue to circulate without disruptive confusion. Publish results by denomination and rollout year.

THE POINT

A nation tells its history in museums, classrooms, monuments, street names—and in the pictures passing through millions of hands every day. Those pictures deserve more thought than nostalgia, more public participation than an insider meeting, and more engineering discipline than a graphic-design competition on the internet.

The argument is not that money should become a political purity test. It is that the people who built, argued over, repaired, challenged, and transformed America deserve a serious place in the country's visual memory. Let the historical evidence be contested. Let the design process be public. Let the money still work.

E pluribus unum, bitches.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

01 · U.S. Mint — The Design and Selection Process, official overview. https://www.usmint.gov/news/inside-the-mint/how-coins-are-made-design-and-selection-process

02 · Bureau of Engraving and Printing — $1 Note, historical designs and redesign restriction. https://www.bep.gov/currency/circulating-currency/1-note

03 · U.S. Mint — 2026 Semiquincentennial Circulating Coin Program Designs Unveiled, December 11, 2025. https://www.usmint.gov/content/usmint/us/en/news/press-releases/united-states-mint-semiquincentennial-circulating-coin-program-designs-unveiled.html

04 · Bureau of Engraving and Printing — Circulating Currency, denominations and legal-tender status. https://www.bep.gov/currency/circulating-currency

05 · Bureau of Engraving and Printing — Currency Redesign, engineering and counterfeit-deterrence process. https://www.bep.gov/currency/currency-redesign

06 · Bureau of Engraving and Printing — Meaningful Access Program, accessible U.S. currency. https://www.bep.gov/services/currency-accessibility/meaningful-access-program

07 · Federal Reserve — Currency in Circulation: Volume, 2025 year-end data. https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin_currcircvolume.htm

08 · Federal Reserve — How Much Does It Cost to Produce Currency and Coin? 2025 budget. https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm

09 · U.S. House Office of Law Revision Counsel — 31 U.S.C. § 5114, currency portraits and inscriptions. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?edition=prelim&num=0&req=granuleid%3AUSC-prelim-title31-section5114

10 · U.S. Mint — How Coins Are Made: Design and Selection Process. https://www.usmint.gov/news/inside-the-mint/how-coins-are-made-design-and-selection-process

11 · Federal Reserve Office of Inspector General — Board Financial Statements for 2025 and 2024, March 2026. https://oig.federalreserve.gov/reports/board-financial-statement-audit-mar2026.pdf

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WE ARE ONE.  ·  E PLURIBUS UNUM.