I guess the Trump administration is delaying issuance of the Harriet Tubman 20-dollar bill for eight years, which, given the length of a presidential term, is the same as saying, "We ain't gonna do it." The official reason is "counterfeiting concerns," a likely excuse that invites the observation that at least these guys purport to be against the grifts of others.
If Tubman were the subject of a free association test, the universal response would be Underground Railroad, the system of abolitionist households and hideaways she developed to assist runaway slaves escaping to the North. But she did that as a young woman. She lived well into the 20th century, dying at 91 in 1913. Here is a taste of her subsequent career, from Wikipedia:
When the Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than 700 slaves. After the war, she retired to the family home on property she had purchased in 1859 in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her aging parents. She was active in the women's suffrage movement until illness overtook her and she had to be admitted to a home for elderly African Americans that she had helped to establish years earlier.
Beats hell out of Andrew Jackson! I don't know the story behind whose portraits are on our money, but it must be that, when the decisions were made, the political equivalents of the first five Hall of Famers--Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Honus Wagner, and Babe Ruth--were assigned to the coins and bills that were then in everyone's pockets: Lincoln on the penny and five, Jefferson on the nickel, Washington on the quarter and the one, FDR on the dime, Ben Franklin on the half-dollar. Coins no longer are of much use, and, when you go to the ATM, you indicate whether you want Andrew Jackson or U.S. Grant on your paper money. They must have beaten out Martin Van Buren and Franklin Pierce. No one cared, those denominations were not in wide circulation when the honors were doled out.
It's past time to freshen up, but the cultural divide is such that there can be no agreement on whom to honor. For Trump, Harriet Tubman is the wrong color, considering that she didn't play golf. If he had his way, he'd probably replace Grant with Lee, a traitor, on the 50. Maybe a way forward would be to eschew, or at least curtail, putting political figures on our money. I hereby nominate Walt Whitman for the 10-dollar bill. We have a cultural history, too! But let's not give up on Harriet Tubman. If Trump and Mnuchin won't have her, that's good enough for me. Put her on the 20, August Wilson on the 50, and Martin Luther King on the C-note. That'll really piss them off. Our kids' wallets, if they still carry cash, will look like what Trump calls a "shithole."
Comments