Fordham Law Professor Nicholas Johnson appeared on Wisconsin Public Radio to discuss his book The Negro and the Gun and why he believes future $20 bills featuring Harriet Tubman will not depict her holding a gun.
He said the image of Tubman holding a gun makes many uncomfortable because it clashes with our notion of African-American and abolitionist history. In his new book, “Negroes and the Gun,” Johnson endeavors to bridge this disconnect between the “historical utility of firearms” with “the modern issues” that black communities grapple with on a daily basis.
When thinking about the history of civil rights and African-American empowerment, Johnson calls the standard narrative “glib.” To most people, he said, the story goes something like, “Well, we had a civil war, and then we had Reconstruction … and then black people just sat on the sidelines until the 1960s and we really didn’t have to pay attention to them.”