Political correctness and there were others who, in fact, did not even know who Harriet Tubman of, and various pictures Harriet Tubman appeared on the whornet and they were women were in fact not harriet seven. Harriet summit has been a subject of childrens fiction. Who harrietple know tubman was. That is not the case with the american public. The irony was noted of having Harry Tuchman on the front of the 20 bill and Andrew Jackson on the back. As many of you know, Andrew Jackson was not only a slaveholder himself, but, he was oversaw indian removal and was renowned for being really an indian killer. In addition to that, many people pointed to the fact that here you have Harriet Tubman who was values, whosead worth was, for many people, defined by the amount of money that people paid for her. On, here she is being put perhaps the most popular symbol of american capitalism, the 20 bill. We have today some very historians who are talking with the placement of tubman on the 20 bill, and perhaps, dealing with the controversy. I will announce everyone as they speak. I dont want someone to tune into cspan and say, who is that. Our first speaker is catherine. Linton she is the chair of American History at the university of texas san antonio and is International Research professor at Queens University belfast. Her first book, the plantation mistress, womans world in the tubman h, and harriet wasroad to f freedom determined one of the best books of 2014. Published over 25 books, including awardwinning books toochildren such as, i thing for america. For stevenadvisor spielbergs lincoln. 2012 fleming lectures will be published later this year. Was on thelinton committee, or, excuse me, the smithsonian summit for putting a woman on the american currency. Im sure she will share some of her experiences on that summit. Without further ado, catholic. [applause] i want to say it is so great to be here, think your last year for the very rousing hundred celebration, i was especially heartened by the recognition of africanamerican women and its inclusion. This panel is something im very grateful for. I want to contextualize a bit my role in this. When i began my doctoral degree in American History at princeton, it was celebrations of the u. S. Bicentennial and working on africanamerican. Ubjects and women subjects during the age of jackson, it was something really quite terrible. Populating aed in woman this landscape in the 1980s, battling against academic determinism to keep women out of the academic narrative. I went into it trying to really change the narrative. Steppedstopped off e latter to write fulltime, i found that harry tubman was really languishing on childrens shelf. No new work, no new writings. When i went into my sons classroom, i found the fascination with harriet up and a constant, persistent same. I was often asked questions about other types of characters. I was working on an encyclopedia article and found that the last biography had been from 1942. This, he wrote, was the subject of two dozen juvenile picture books by 1990 with childrens increasingon tubman exponentially. Her controversial contributions before 1816 were for grounded. The civilscout during war. After a few 55, she had a steady. Ecord yet, the halfcentury following the abolition of slavery, until her death in 1913, remains relatively neglected in the juvenile accounts. Tubman ime my harriet in road to freedom appeared 2004, scholars think very eager. Nd ready to integrate her as i said just, in my biography, she had a very adaptive persona. The back panthers celebrated her woman in arms. Finally, the academy was ready to embrace her as a longlost hero. When the women in the 20s campaign and merged, it followed ,n the wake of rosie rios president obamas appointment of u. S. Treasurer, campaigning with the secretary of treasury and secretary jack lew to put women on the face of american currency. As the Internet Campaign raised important issues about putting women on the face of money, harry tubman was the face of 160,000 ballots cast. This was sent in may of 2000 and coincided with the new 10 bill, hadmpaign that lew conceived to ask the question, who should appear on the new american currency . Over one million americans in the summer of 2015 sent in their nominees. This became, in many ways, a populist campaign to educate people on women in American History. As you may have seen, apparently the republican nominees dabbling out and debates. In the summer of 2015, additionally a campaign was launched, and there were competing agendas about who should appear on the newly redesigned bill. The secretary of treasury invited a group of scholars to discuss ongoing efforts to put a female face on the currency. This was part of several meetings around the country and the launching of the website. Visited passionate opinions and heated exchanges. I was grateful to be a part of it. I presented my book to the treasure herself. Rangingre specialists from early american in the 20 century to religion, women studies. Ice adjusted that a woman of color must be the first female honored on any redesigned currency. I was not alone in the convention, nor the anyone who advocated that a woman was best to fit the bill. I was quite surprised that, as i felt the group tilting towards tubman, another scholar brought up the question that the American People might not be onpared to accept a mammy the money, even if it was Harriet Tubman. Im not quoting exactly the full comment but it really did crystallize for those of us arguing passionately, there was, Harriet Tubman. She might be up against the mammy, but she was a new generation of africanamerican scholarship that was about this disremember rather than omitting. Fantastic. Have been her name being famous and underground railroad literature. In late 20 century, her legacy should be remembered in a very to way. Like many, i followed Media Chatter on the topic. The secretary of treasury jacob would be and there outpouring of interest, as there was. Outcry of hamilton followed. With the final decision, not only would Harriet Tubman the , butn the front of the 20 as wellill also appear as on the redesigned five dollars bill, you will have marian anderson, eleanor roosevelt, and Martin Luther king. Several have controversial remarks on this, but change is really a foot. Certainly, when i began my academic career, the idea that such a cheap seachange would happen in my lifetime, that students would come familiar tubman seem to unbelievable. Vicki really is reminded her , women are capable of everything and anything. Writing my biography of harry letan, i adopted the metro, 100 harriets bloom. We will have hundreds of harriets in circulation. Thank you. [applause] thank you. You know, i neglected to introduce myself. White. Borah gray im testing was professor of history at rutgers university. Just cameof you who in, i am introducing everyone as they speak because we are fortunate enough to have this recorded for posterity for all of us by cspan. This is a be airing surprise to us, but a very pleasant surprise. It will be airing at 8 00 Eastern Standard Time on november 1. Check your local listings. Second presenter and we are going through this relatively quickly because we do want time to have an extensive question and answer period the second presenter is jessica millworth of university of california, irvine. Slaveryarch focuses on and early america, african American History, as well as women and gender. Finding charity enslaved and free black women in maryland was by the university of Georgia Press and 2015. She is currently working on a project that discusses womensamericans experiences with Sexual Assault and intimate Partner Violence through the long 19thcentury. [applause] i want to make sure all the apparatuses are working. It leans back. There we go. Good morning. Thank you all for coming today. I would like to thank my panelists because i after quick this panel together. It came out as a conversation some of us were having, actually, using modern bbf. We were texting back and forth and talking about what this bill for slaveryit meant scholars. It was quickly agreed to do a panel. We invited the rest of the members before you today. I thank you very much for joining this panel. With the u. S. Treasury announced that Harriet Tubman would be on the 20 bill, i had a mixed reaction. Just interested in the memes that came out and some of the funny jokes. People were trying to explain how happy they were about this. One of my favorites was in black for an accurate, now people would be saying, let me hold five dollars, they would say, can i hold a tub for a week and get back to you as in harry tubman. That was the funny side, the joyful side. I, like many people, and very happy that an africanamerican woman will be on the u. S. Monetary bill rate however, i also had extreme sadness. As someone who works on enslaved women, and in maryland, in particular, i was conflicted about what this means about images of public memory, about the archive of slavery, and finally, what it means about the continued commodification of black womens bodies. Specifically i dont mean women that we know, i mean women be dont know. What is lost when the only represent one iconic person. Public memory is as much about what we want to forgive as but we want to remember. Historians, our job is to deal with the consequences of cause and effect as if in history. If you are assigned the role of the public historian, you speak to larger audiences, and sometimes, crucial details can be lost. What that allows to have an, as a nation, is to have cognitive dissonance. We are not into it with the steps it takes to get someone either on a boat of money or status. Iconic we forget the lived experiences may have been like. For africanamerican women, this has a particular implication. Even today, in the public imagination, public media, africanamerican women are still a curiosity. Sometimes they are on display in music videos. Now, with Michelle Obama in the white house, there is a different type of image. There is the strong, black family. When we look at early american slaves women as the scholar Jennifer Morgan notes, early travelers to africa considered africanamerican bodies as a monstrosity. Monstrosity to be displayed on a 20 bill. We know that she ran away, she left her family, she travels back to the south several times. What is actually not spoken many of the times is harriet have been was wellversed in freedom. Many of her family members were freed by will. This notion of freedom did not come out of nowhere. It had been bred into her. What we know about harry tubman is she is more well formed than other women in history. We have more complex readings of her think to some historians. This brings us to the archive. Public memory, we know black women are curiosity. At one point, they are a monstrosity. This brings us to be archive. Very often, africanamerican women are not entered into the archives. They are not deemed important enough. In other words, how do we built the story from the bottomup . Had research for women that are not supposed to be their . In my own work, i stumbled upon a woman named charity, who was enslaved in the 1700s. She earned her freedom slightly after the american revolution. She and her childrens freedom and her grandchildren freedom. Her family goes on to be a very and both anamily atlas baltimore, and bjork. I had to contend with the fact, issue like other black women or a exceptional . Charityways, looking at and harry tubman, we seek to people, one well known, one not so well known, but their lives are intermingled in some ways. Harry tubman runs away from maryland and returned. Charity is enslaved in maryland, freed in maryland, and she lives in maryland. She spends her entire life in maryland. Yet, here are these two women that i would argue to both be in the american canon of slavery. Again, when enslaved women entered the archive, they are usually recorded as pieces of property. As free black women, we have much more information about them. We do not know how they continue to wrestle with what is called the afterlife of slavery. They wrestled with laws imposed upon them and constricting. Ovement history is a restorative process. If we lose money, the 20 bill, and think about it as historical evidence and think about it in 100 years, when people go into the archive, if it lives somewhere in the cloud, i wonder what people would think about this moment, to look at harry tubman on a 20 bill at a time deeply thes. So values devalues black lives. We are reminded that black lives were worth more enslaved than as free people. Finally, as i close, i would like to talk about how the black woman body works as its own archives. We know that history was grafted on the body whether the terms of andical punishment, everything they did in ways stop having pregnancies, to further the system of slavery. We know of course, disproportionately, they were raped. We also know that in the cases maryland, just like slavery was attached to the woman, so was freedom. They were weak moments when an asleep when i could give birth to a free child. The catch was a declaration had to be made for the child at the that some mothers freedom was declared. Essentially, if mary was freed, there were provisions for her children. To return to want the issue of Andrew Jackson remaining on the backside of the 20 bill. In some ways, keeping andrew conceding the bill is to people who are not ready for a major change. My thoughts are two. There are countless unnamed women who hot the archives, memory, and literally, some of us because they carry the weight s the African Diaspora past. Havent black women carried enough on their backs already . Must we be long hunted or injure images of slaveholders writing women from the back . [applause] we will discuss that later. [laughter] lashawnhird speaker is harris, professor of history at Michigan State university. Some of her scholarly essays appear in the journal of african American History, the journal of social history and the journal of urban history. She is the author of sex workers, psychic, and numbers runners black women in new york economy, published in 2015. [applause] good morning. Thank you for inviting me to be on this panel. Recently, i wrote a book that examines early 20th Century Black womens participation in in newerground economy york. The labor sectors served as a catalyst for workingclass women creation of employment activities, activities, and survival strategies, providing Financial Stability and autonomy. Povertystricken and middleclass mothers, churchgoers, and pleasure speakers, informal wage workers entered the underground economy for a host of reasons. Includingnal black urbanization, migration, local and national downturns, family conflict, and the urban syndicate. Possibility of creating new attainingtities, economic wealth, and social and sexual pleasures fueled attraction to elicit labor. Black women part out niches for , laboring, often times, in the shadows. Harry tubman, like urban black woman nearly six decades. Ater, labored off the grid she worked as hundreds, a scout, and the spy, organizing one of the lesser known Espionage Networks of the 19th century. Her laboring efforts as a spy are classic example of the ways madeich clandestine work it possible for the continual structure of democracy and capitalism. For topic, laboring in the shadows came at a price. She faced the possibility of being captured by Confederate Forces and did not reap the fruits of her labor. 20thver, like earlier century women laboring in the shadows, she was not properly compensated for her services. She was forced to rely on the includingof friends. Iving to con artists one of the possible ways to recognize her service to the nation is by placing current on the 20 bill. By placing her on u. S. Currency, it is one of commemoration. The image of her on the front of is anank bill reckon opportunity to reexamine her life, political activism, and civil war participation, to reiterate the importance of black women and the role that they played in the development of the nation, and most importantly, the image of tubman on the front of the bank note represents the opportunity to ask laura black womens complex relation to capitalism. [applause] our next speaker is tiffany , associate professor in the department of black studies and black history at the university of delaware. She is the author of beauty shop politics, africanamerican women in the beauty industry. Subject editor and is at work on a book manuscript tentatively titled, civil rights on vacation, International Leisure travel, and the making of black global citizens. She is also a scholar in for the 20162017 academic year. [applause] thank you and good morning. Bes truly an honor to invited to be on this panel, particularly, i do not work on the period of slavery. I hold my scholarly colleagues, who do the work of reconstructing black womens lives during slavery they are sort of my academic euros and s. Roins it is equally important and. Ainstaking i decided to center my musings on the role of memory, as well as representation. Mywas mentioned, much of research has been about black women, beauty culture, and representation. That is where i want to center my remarks and reactions to on the 20 bill. Actio i picture her stapled on my Elementary School classrooms bulletin board. Black History Month was exciting. In addition to presence, we got to have some black women. Imageot recall the exact that i beheld, but i remember thinking, this woman appeared old and wise to my eightyearold eyes. I could not fully appreciate her complexities based on the image. Ensional after the