There are new efforts within the Biden administration to restart the initiative to replace the face on the U-S $20 bill.
Andrew Jackson now graces the piece of green but there are talks to replace his image with abolitionist Harriet Tubman.
The ambitions first started under the Obama presidency but didn’t make much of headway.
U-W Madison Expert Christy Clark-Pujara says if changes to the currency do take place, it will bring significant cultural importance.
“Most people know her as a conductor on the underground railroad but she was also this incredibly involved abolitionist. She is the only woman in U-S history to lead a military expedition and the she fights for women’s rights. She was so much more than a conductor on the underground railroad,” said Clark-Pujara.
But by putting her image on a form of U-S currency, also brings a stark reminder of the unsettling past of our nation.
“I think we need to think about what it means to put her (Tubman) on money,” Clark-Pujara said. “considering she was once a form of capital herself and that she spent the last half of her life really critiquing capitalism especially as it pertained to slavery. Because in antebellum America enslaved African American men, women, and children were bought, sold, willed, mortgaged, held as collateral and repossessed by people, banks, firms and state governments.”
You can hear more of the interview by clicking on the player above.
