This week, the Biden administration announced that it would resume efforts to put Harriet Tubman’s image on the $ 20 bill, a measure first advocated by the Obama administration in 2016. Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday – the Treasury Department is “exploring ways to accelerate” the process to ensure that the 19th century freedom fighter is recognized.
“It is important that our notes, our money – if people don’t know what a note is – reflect the history and diversity of our country,” said Psaki during a press conference at the White House. “Harriet Tubman’s image adorning the new $ 20 bill would certainly reflect that.”
Many initially praised the Obama era Treasury Secretary Jack Lew’s initiative to highlight the American abolitionist. For supporters, the idea of having Tubman, herself an ex-slave, replacing former president Andrew Jackson, a slave owner, is a bold rebuke to a horrible time in American history.
But some black activists say that putting Tubman on the $ 20 bill is a difficult fit with his legacy.
“Harriet Tubman did not fight for capitalism, free trade or competitive markets,” wrote Feminist Jones, an activist, author and advocate in an opinion piece for the Washington Post in 2015.
“She repeatedly put herself in the firing line to free people who were treated like currency,” added Jones. “She risked her life to ensure that enslaved blacks knew that they were worth more than the blood money they changed hands to buy and sell them. I do not believe that Tubman, who died poor in 1913, would accept the ‘honor’ ”.
Tubman, born in slavery around 1822, was the fourth of nine children and grew up working on cotton plantations in Dorchester County, Maryland. In 1849, Tubman escaped from his plantation under the cloak of darkness, following the North Star to Philadelphia at the age of 27 and began working as a maid. After saving enough money the following year, she returned to the South to free her sister’s family. In the next 10 years, Tubman helped more than 700 slaves to escape to freedom, becoming the best known of the “conductors” of the Underground Railway,
Later, Tubman was a spy for the Union Army during the Civil War, and later became the first woman in the country’s history to lead a military expedition; she was also known to be a prominent supporter of the female suffragette movement. She died in 1913 at the age of 91.
Jones, in an interview with Yahoo News this week, questioned why putting Tubman on a bill would honor his legacy.
“Why do we want to put someone who fought for the liberation from this type of capitalist oppression?” Jones asked. “Why do we want to take her image and then make her the face of this thing that so many people don’t have access to?”
“I studied Harriet Tubman extensively,” she added. “If there is one thing I understand, it is that she was not recognized for all the amazing things she did. She died in poverty and was a US veteran. The [country] I should have honored you as a veteran. She was the only woman to lead an attack for the Union Army. This in itself is an incredible achievement for the female audience. So, why not recognize this? “
Instead of putting black women, or any woman of color, on a note, Jones says that black women just want to be valued equally in society.
“When it comes to acting, I’m going to be quite honest, I don’t really care about that,” said Jones. “Representation without action, without change of policy, without improvement in daily life means nothing to me.”
“I don’t need to look in magazines and see people who look like me if I’m still having difficulties every day,” she added. “This is not what is important to me. … So when people ask, ‘What do black women want?’ We want our humanity to be recognized. We want to have dignity. We want people to see us as human beings, not as workers, not as mules, not as other people’s servants. “
Historically, black women earn a fraction of what white men and women earn, despite being the most educated population in the country. For every dollar a white man earns for work in the United States, white women earn 79 cents and black women earn only 62 cents, according to a 2019 Bureau of Labor Statistics report.
The average net worth of black women in America paints an even darker picture. Single black women aged 20 to 39 with children but without a bachelor’s degree have an average net worth of $ 0, according to a 2017 report by the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity. Single black women aged 20 to 39 with a bachelor’s degree have an even worse rate, having an average net worth of – $ 11,000 to $ 0. White women, on the other hand, do considerably better. White single women between the ages of 20 and 39 with a bachelor’s degree have an average net worth of $ 3,400 to $ 7,500.
The impulse to have Tubman on the $ 20 bill was initially set to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the women’s suffrage movement in 2020. But the year came and went without any revision on the $ 20 bill.
The plan to put Tubman on the $ 20 bill came to a standstill during the Trump administration. President Trump, while still a candidate in 2016, called the pressure to replace Jackson with Tubman “pure politically correct”. Trump hailed Jackson as his political hero and installed a portrait of the ex-president in the Oval Office amid criticism from some historians and activists who noted that Jackson, in addition to being a slave owner, committed genocide against Native Americans.
Now, years after the plan to place Tubman on the $ 20 bill, was first presented, the move is being met with praise and opposition.
Akinyele Umoja, a professor of African American studies at Georgia State University, said she “sees both sides” of the debate, but ultimately believes that the measure pays tribute to Tubman appropriately.
“I was happy, especially after the delay, that there was some movement on that front to have Harrriet Tubman represented,” said Umoja, author of “We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement,” he told Yahoo News. “Critics are asking questions about this being just symbolism and arguing that there is racial capitalism going on and black people are being affected. And then people want to see something more substantive than just symbolism. Me too.”
But he adds: “It was Trump who held him. So I definitely don’t want to be on the same side as him and the white supremacists. “
However, not everyone supports change so much. Ashley Stevens, a black Twitter user with many followers, said she thinks “some kind of perversion” about putting Tubman on the project.
“A woman who was traded as capital becoming the face of capital is not in keeping with my spirit”, Stevens said Monday in a tweet that went viral. “If you want to pay tribute to Tubman, there are much better ways to do that that would change the material benefits of people’s lives. Build schools, parks, a historic center, etc. in your name. Putting your face on the 20 dollar bill is not even a good feeling. This is making me sick ”.
The last time a woman appeared on an American paper note was more than a century ago, when former First Lady Martha Washington awarded the $ 1 silver certificate from 1891 to 1896. Before that, the only other woman to appearing on a bill was Pocahontas, depicted in a group image on the $ 20 bill, from 1865 to 1869.
Psaki, Biden’s press secretary, said details about when the redesigned $ 20 bill would be finalized by the Treasury Department. Coincidentally, Biden chose Janet Yellen to lead this department, becoming the first woman to be secretary of the treasury in the department’s 232-year history.
Jones argues that the Tubman debate highlights the country’s unhealthy obsession with money.
“I fully understand why people are pushing for this type of representation because money is the king, right?” she said. “But also understand the harm it can do. … I think we really need to think a lot about our connection and how we function within this capitalist system. “
Illustration of the miniature cover photo: Yahoo News; photos: Universal History Archive / Getty Images, Getty Images
_____
Read more on Yahoo News:
Originally published