“Andrew Jackson had a history of tremendous success for the country”, Trump said during a town hall on NBC’s Today show.
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WBFO’s Chris Caya reports on Harriet Tubman’s role in national and local history.
The U.S. Treasury recently announced that Tubman, a former slave who helped others escape the horrors of slavery, will be featured on the new bills. She says the bill will be graced with a person who believed in courage, bravery, and doing whatever necessary to help others. “I think there should be more women on the dollars/coins of the United States because if there were no women there wouldn’t be men”.
The new $20s are expected to go into circulation in 2020, with Tubman replacing the portrait of Andrew Jackson, the nation’s seventh president and a slave owner, who is being pushed to the back of the bill. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Jackson will be moved to the back of the bill.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump, for instance, pronounced it “political correctness”, his simplistic, knee-jerk response to those things that acknowledge the reality of this country’s history and the stage being set for what should be a future that embraces all who call themselves – or hope to call themselves – Americans.
Though the Macon museum isn’t filled with Tubman’s belongings, a temporary exhibit on the first floor features historic photographs of Tubman, a life-size sculpture and other artifacts connected with her life.
Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson talks to Robert Watson, assistant professor of history at Hampton University, about Tubman and the history of the Underground Railroad.
Tubman was born into slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore around 1822.
In effect, Tubman will get around the money circle more than Hamilton on the $10 bill. Tubman’s position on the $20 bill will provide an opportunity for inclusivity and will also eliminate the problematic Andrew Jackson from his position on the front.
Lew’s announcement means that Alexander Hamilton will maintain his prominent position on American currency. According to YahooNews, Both Tubman and Jackson symbolise victory, but over different kinds of oppression.
“Even though she had married a free man, she left him, left her parents, learned how to conduct herself as an individual who could not read, could not write, but who was willing to use her common sense to rescue people”, Jarmon said.
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But she finds much to admire in Tubman, a union spy who made more than a dozen missions to rescue enslaved families.
