Strange Fruit

Hours before we went into the studio this week, rumors started swirling on the internet: Harriet Tubman would be on the twenty dollar bill. It's something we'd heard before, as part of a wider effort to get a woman on U.S. paper currency. But when it looked like it would be Tubman specifically, we had mixed emotions. Tubman fought against enslavement, a system that made money off the oppression of black people. Is putting her on money disrespectful of that legacy? Or is it poetic justice? We spent most of this week's episode unpacking the pros and cons, along with activist Chaz Briscoe, and WFPL's new online managing editor, Jonese Franklin. Brisco felt less ambivalent than some. He hated it. "It's a complete betrayal of Harriet Tubman's legacy as an abolitionist. To codify her within a system that was built on the backs and oppression of black people does a huge disservice to her legacy," Briscoe says. "Harriet Tubman was about the freedom of black people, so why re-inscribe that into a system