Make U.S. Dollars as Diverse as Our History
With that in mind, I am pleased to note that not all conservatives were unhappy with Treasury's move. "Given the sheer number of blows that Tubman struck for liberty," tweeted National Review writer Charles C.W. Cooke, "she belongs on the currency more than most. Good choice."
I agree. I have nothing against white males, dead or alive, but they didn't build this country alone. As much as the denial of uncomfortable history seems to be our national pastime, we Americans have more than one historical narrative to tell.
Jackson, who owned hundreds of slaves and shut down the national bank in the name of the common man's struggle against elites, always has been a controversial, larger-than-life figure, even in his own time.
But there is also a bracing irony to his forced relocation to the backside of the $20 bill. After all, as famous as he may be for his heroic victories as a general in the War of 1812, he also instigated the "Trail of Tears," a series of forced relocations of Native Americans under his deplorable Indian Removal Act of 1830. Thousands died from exposure, disease and starvation along the route.
We should never try to erase history. We should try to put it into context. In that spirit, few life stories show more grit, courage and determination than Tubman's. After escaping slavery in Maryland, where she was born around 1822, she returned to the South more than a dozen times to lead friends, relatives and others to freedom. She also instructed dozens in how to make their own way to freedom.
During the Civil War, she served as a scout and spy for the U.S. Army, and led a raid on plantations in South Carolina that probably made her the first woman to lead this nation's troops into combat.
Before she died in 1913, she worked with Susan B. Anthony and others to become a leading advocate for the right of women to vote.
Traditionalists gripe at the inconvenience of having to get used to a new face on our currency. But until paper currency falls to the rising age of digital dollars, Tubman's likeness can remind us that America works best as a land of inclusion, not exclusion.
========
(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)
(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
