Why Harriet Tubman Belongs on the $20 Bill
The question of who represents the United States via their face on the nation’s paper currency came to head under the white supremacist leadership of former President Donald Trump. After it was decided that the great abolitionist and freedom fighter Harriet Tubman would grace the $20 bill, Trump delayed the process. It has now been taken up by the Biden administration. In a new book detailing the context of race and democracy that frames the reasons why Tubman and not, say, Andrew Jackson belongs on the bill, author Clarence Lusane takes us on a critically important historical tour.
Dr. Clarence Lusane is the former chair of Howard University’s Department of Political Science and the current director of its International Affairs program. He is an author, activist, scholar, lecturer, and journalist. For more than 40 years, he has written about and been active in national and international human rights, anti-racism politics, diaspora engagements, U.S. foreign policy, democracy building, and social justice issues. He spoke with YES! Racial Justice Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on Rising Up With Sonali about his new book, Twenty Dollars and Change: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy.
The views expressed here and on Rising Up With Sonali do not necessarily reflect the opinion of YES! Media.
|
Sonali Kolhatkar
joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 TEDx talk of the same name.
|
Inspiration in Your Inbox
Sign up to receive email updates from YES!
