Searched on the web and cannot believe I haven’t found any reliable sites on this question. I would like to bring this up with a high school history class I teach, but I want to find out the facts.
On the back of the $2 bill, there is a picture of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Sitting towards the left is what looks like a black man. I’ve heard two explanations for this:
On a site run by Dick Gregory, he claims this is John Hanson, the first President of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation. Wikipedia debunks this myth, as it says that Hanson was white (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hanson_(myths)).
Another teacher told me that when the bicentennial $2 bill was created in 1976, the govt decided to play lip service to civil rights by including a black man in the picture, but that no black men were really present. Sounds more believable to me, but I havent found any confirmation.
I apologize if this has been taken up already; I don’t have search capability on these boards yet. But if there is a link you could point me to, I would really appreciate it.
Or, there’s
3) There’s no black man in that image, some folks just think there is one
Frankly, they all look green to me. And at that level of detail, I don’t think one could reliably distinguish any of the other characteristics which could differentiate between races.
It’d be just like Whitey to put a black man on a small bill nobody uses. But in this case, I guess Whitey outdid himself by not putting a black man on a dollar bill at all.
On the $2 bill, there does appear to be a person whose skin is darker - it’s the 4th seated man from the left in the front row. However, when comparing it to the original painting(thanks, Eleusis), it appears that the man is in shadow, not actually dark-skinned. In short, he appears black because of the limitations of transferring a color painting to a small green and white printing.
I happen to carry a 2 dollar bill around in my wallet, and I think the shadow assumption is correct. Especially since the person seated to the right of him seems to be half in shadow.
HEY! You just sparked my memory! I remember when I was a kid older people would carry a $2 bill hidden in their wallet. Any idea where that trend originated?