Less than a month after rioters carrying confederate battle flags stormed the U.S. Capitol, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced that the Treasury Department would accelerate plans to replace the likeness of former President and General Andrew Jackson on the twenty dollar bill with abolitionist Harriet Tubman. By reviving the Obama-era plan, which became moribund under the Trump Administration, Psaki said the time had come for U.S. currency to “reflect the history and diversity of our country.” But is putting Tubman’s face on a means of commercial exchange the best way to honor someone who spent her life challenging ideas of property? Christy Clark-Pujara is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin Madison Department of Afro-American Studies. Her research focuses on the experiences of black people in French and British North America in the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries.
