Search This Blog

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Harriet Tubman's likeness to be on $20 bill

You will now be able to take Harriet Tubman to the bank! (Proposed bill suggested by CNN Money)

Yes, the U.S. Treasury Department has announced that Freedom Fighter Harriet Tubman will be on the U.S.$20 bank note.

Other exceptional woman in the running to be on the bill included Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Florence Kelley, Charlotte Perkins Gilman,  Jane Addams,  Ida B. Wells, Alice Hamilton,
Margaret Sanger, Helen Keller,  Frances Perkins, Eleanor Roosevelt, Alice Paul,  Dorothy Day,
Margaret Mead, Ella Baker, Rachel Carson, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Betty Friedan,

Harriet Tubman (1822-1913) was born into slavery. Tubman was best known as an abolitionist and leader of the Underground Railroad, but she was also an outspoken advocate for granting women the right to vote. She is most well-known for being a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

Johnson as Tubman
The physical violence she suffered early in life caused permanent physical injuries. In 1849, fearing that she, along with the other slaves on the plantation, was to be sold, Tubman resolved to run away. She set out one night on foot. With some assistance from a friendly white woman, Tubman was on her way. She followed the North Star by night, making her way to Philadelphia, where she found work and saved her money. Rather than remaining in the safety of the North, Tubman made it her mission to rescue her family and others living in slavery.

The following year she returned to Maryland and escorted her sister and her sister's two children to freedom. By 1856, Tubman's capture would have brought a $40,000 reward from the South. On one occasion, she overheard some men reading her wanted poster, which stated that she was illiterate. She promptly pulled out a book and feigned reading it. The ploy was enough to fool the men.

During a 10-year span she made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom. She helped create an elaborate secret network of safe houses—the Underground Railroad—organized for that purpose. As she once proudly pointed out to fellow abolitionist Frederick Douglass, in all of her journeys she "never lost a single passenger."

(https://thenew10.treasury.gov/news/20-women-who-should-appear-10-bill-talking-points-memo)

3 comments:

Please leave a comment or email your comments to tomimot@gmail.com.