The never-ending war against racism in America has denuded southern flagpoles of the Confederate battle banner and forced state capitols to store the statues of ancient slavers.
Nationally Americans agreed that Andrew Jackson, a die-hard slaver and Indian killer, better not represent the nation’s higher values and the US Treasury decided the replace ‘Old Hickory’ with Harriet Tubman, a black woman, who led over a thousand blacks from Dixie too freedom.
There was rumbling from below the Mason-Dixon line as well as north of the border, but Ms. Tubman was a true hero.
Tubman carried an old Navy revolver.
She was not afraid of using it.
No one under her care went back to a plantation.
She was not the first woman to grace paper money.
Martha Washington, another slave owner, was on the $10,000 bill.
We didn’t see many of those.
My favorite prior on the $1 coin to pistol-packing Harriet Tubman was Sacajawea, a Lemhi Shoshone woman who accompanied the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Pacific and back.
Without her knowledge and language skills the white men would have never reached their goal.
The remained in the Western Plains, alternatively dying of illness in 1812 or living in Wyoming to 1884.
I have been to her grave.
Amongst her people.
Harriet Tubman was buried in Auburn, New York.
Far from Dixie.
A good thing back then.
May she live on the $20 for ages.