Black icon Harriet Tubman to appear on US $20 bill

There was great controversy and jubilation in equal measure when it was announced earlier this week that Harriet Tubman would be replacing President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.

The U.S Treasury announced that Harriet Tubman, anti-slavery activist and slavery abolitionist is set to become the first black person to feature on U.S. paper currency. Treasury Secretary, Jack Lew said the $20 bill would join new designs of $10 and $5 bills by 2020.

Harriet Tubman risked her life to free enslaved Blacks who were at the time just seen as property. Tubman fought to ensure that slaves would be recognized as fellow human beings and equal in the eyes of the law. She is a significant historic figure that helped abolish slavery.

However, women and Blacks until this day are facing the systematic discrimination and racism that is the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade - inequalities that Harriet Tubman was fighting for when there was no career or prestige in doing so. In fact your life was put at peril, literally, if you put your head above the parapet on this most toxic of issues during the formation of the United States.

Is having the face of Harriet Tubman on our currency a token gesture that masks the persistent inequalities that African Americans continue to face today or is it a symbolic step in the right direction, recognising the onward march of progress that America has taken? Join the conversation, what do you think?

Briana Bell