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Image Of Danbury's Marian Anderson To Grace New $5 Bill

DANBURY, Conn. — Hometown Danbury heroine Marian Anderson will take a star turn on the new $5 bill as the U.S. Treasury Department makes our money more modern.

Opera singer Marian Anderson of Danbury will be included on the new $5 bill.

Opera singer Marian Anderson of Danbury will be included on the new $5 bill.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

The reverse of the new $5 will highlight the historic events that occurred at the Lincoln Memorial and will include images of Anderson, Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr. The front of the new $5 will retain President Abraham Lincoln’s portrait.

The Treasury Department announced details on the new $5 note on Wednesday afternoon.

In the Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln called for a “new birth of freedom,” urging Americans to do their part to complete, the “unfinished work” ahead.

The Lincoln Memorial has long served as a place where people gathered to complete that unfinished work, the Treasury Department said in a statement.

In 1939 — at a time when concert halls were still segregated — world-renowned opera singer Marian Anderson helped advance civil rights when, with the support of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, she performed at the Lincoln Memorial in front of a crowd of 75,000 people.

And in 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech at the same monument in front of hundreds of thousands.

The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., was dedicated on May 30, 1922, honoring the 16th President of the United States: 

Anderson lived in Danbury for nearly 50 years and for much of her adult life. She and her husband Orpheus "King" Fisher purchased a 100-acre farm in Danbury in 1940 that she named Marianna Farm.

They had searched throughout New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, with property sellers thwarting many attempted sales by taking their homes off the market when they discovered the purchasers would be African-Americans.

The farm was on Joe's Hill Road, in the Mill Plain section of western Danbury. It included a home and separate one-room structure as her studio. 

The property was sold to developers, but Anderson's studio was saved by the Danbury Museum and Historical Society. The group received a grant to relocate the structure and restore it. It has been open to the public since 2004 in its new home on Main Street. 

Anderson died of congestive heart failure on April 8, 1993, at age 96. 

In other changes, the front of the new $20 will feature the portrait of Harriet Tubman, whose life was dedicated to fighting for liberty. The reverse of the new $20 will depict the White House and an image of President Andrew Jackson.

The new $10 will celebrate the history of the women’s suffrage movement, and feature images of Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul, alongside the Treasury building. The front of the new $10 will retain the portrait of Alexander Hamilton.

To learn more about the new modern money, click here to visit the Treasury Department website.

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