The story of Harriet Tubman is currently playing in theaters nationwide with Cynthia Erivo in the titular role. (The movie is simply called Harriet.) But according to the screenwriter, one exec had a very different idea about who should star as the black abolitionist and activist who freed numerous slaves via the Underground Railroad in the 1800s.
That suggestion? Julia Roberts. “I wanted to turn Harriet Tubman’s life, which I’d studied in college, into an action-adventure movie. The climate in Hollywood, however, was very different back then,” writer Gregory Allen Howard said during a Q&A with Focus Features, via People. “I was told how one studio head said in a meeting, ‘This script is fantastic. Let’s get Julia Roberts to play Harriet Tubman.'” Allen said the idea was met with some rather obvious questions, to which the unnamed executive allegedly said, “It was so long ago. No one is going to know the difference.“
People on social media were as confused and outraged as you might be reading about this story. “They want Julia Roberts A WHITE WOMAN to play Harriet Tubman A BLACK ABOLITIONIST who was a SLAVE. Make it make sense,” one Twitter user wrote. “Full offense: if your instinct, when telling a former-slave abolitionist story, is to turn the SLAVE into a WHITE SAVIOR…Just…Even if you ignore the ‘political correctness’ aspect, the blatant disrespect for HISTORY, shows you have no business making this movie, PERIOD,” another tweeted.
Of course, the internet also had some fun—and a side of social commentary—with the rather absurd suggestion.
Of course, no one is implying that Roberts herself had anything to do with the story or the executive’s remarks. She has yet to say anything publicly or via a statement. “Julia Roberts is somewhere minding her damn business….” one Twitter user surmised.
Harriet, not starring Julia Roberts, is playing in theaters nationwide.
In 2018, Focus Features announced that it would release a biopic about Harriet Tubman, directed by Kasi Lemmons and starring Tony-winning actor Cynthia Erivo. And now we have our first look: The first official trailer for Harriet dropped on Tuesday, July 23, and it’s fantastic.
Harriet, which will be out November 1, follows Tubman’s journey escaping slavery in Maryland and becoming an integral part of the Underground Railroad to free other enslaved people. The trailer was met with a large wave of excitement online, with Twitter users already campaigning for Erivo’s Oscar. If Erivo wins an Academy Award, she would be the youngest person ever to achieve an EGOT designation.
“Cynthia Erivo is this close to becoming an EGOT winner, and I am SO ready to watch it happen,” one person wrote on Twitter. Actress Susan Heyward tweeted, “Whhheeeee!!! This imagery, this message, this team, this @CynthiaEriVo! This @leslieodomjr!!”
Erivo’s casting has been a bit controversial, though. Many people have taken issue with the fact that she was born and raised in the U.K., and say the role could have gone to an African American actress with a closer link to the story. Erivo addressed the backlash in an Instagram post last September.
“Nothing has been given to me without me first putting the work in, people speak of foreign privilege and truthfully life would be unbelievably easy if that were applied to me but that is not my portion. I fought for the role of Celie, and spilled blood sweat and tears playing her, the same applies for every role I’ve earned, this will be no different,” she said.
Some people are hoping that this film at least restarts conversations about finally putting Tubman on U.S. currency. The Obama administration had proposed putting her on the $20 bill, replacing former president and slaveholder Andrew Jackson. But the Trump administration’s Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, put those efforts into question in 2018, claiming that no decisions had been made “as to whether we’ll change the bill or won’t change the bill.”
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Watch the full trailer for Harriet, above. Is it November 1 yet?
At age 82, Valerie Ross Manokey knows that her memory is fading a bit. But the retired teacher’s aide in Cambridge, Maryland, who is Tubman’s great-grandniece, becomes animated when recalling bits of family lore. “We know Harriet was born nearby—we say ‘down the country’ because the area is not that big,” she says of Dorchester County, a rural enclave on Maryland’s eastern shore. “She was very intelligent, very kind, and worked very, very hard just to survive.” Manokey has held her own grandchildren in rapt attention with stories passed down by her maternal ancestors. “There was one place where my aunt and [fugitive slaves] were,” she says. “The soldiers were coming through and they had to hide. The house had an opening in the floor, and they all climbed down to hide until the soldiers left.”
The painful legacy of slavery meant stories often did not survive from generation to generation. “Grandma said that when their family members came out of slavery, people didn’t really want to talk about all of that,” Tina says. “She said people wanted to forget. They just wanted to move forward.”
Tina kept her lineage private for years. “Once, when I was very young, I told someone I was related to Harriet, and they said, ‘Oh yeah, well maybe my father is the president of the United States,’” she remembers. “That told me, ‘OK, zip your lips, be quiet, don’t tell anybody ever again.’” She stayed quiet until high school. “A teacher was teaching black history. It was something that we really fought for: a curriculum change to reflect the times; we wanted to know about our own history, and for it to be taught in our own schools. And she came up to me as we were changing classes, and asked, ‘Is it true that Harriet Tubman is your relative?’ I just stood there looking at her like, ‘Where’d you get that from? I’ve never told anybody.’ I just said yes and then I scurried off,” she says. It wasn’t until years later, when a family member was researching their history, that she started opening up about it more.
For years Lauren Jillian Wyatt, great-great-great-great-grandniece of Tubman, and Tina’s daughter, didn’t reveal her ties to Tubman either. “I feared people would question its truth,” says the 32-year-old fashion consultant and writer in Washington, D.C. “I would imagine them searching the surface of my face—dissecting the width of my nose, the tint of my skin, the shape of my eyes—trying to find something reminiscent of this giant woman in me.” But Lauren always felt a deep connection to Aunt Harriet’s spirit, “especially the warrior in her—the steadfast, strategic fighter who wholeheartedly loved her people and did all she could through the conviction of a purpose beyond her own,” she says. “This not only enabled her to impact her own life and that of her family, but her entire surrounding and extended communities for generations to come.”
Tina believes new efforts to remember Tubman’s legacy are vital. “The impact of having Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill would recognize a need and send a message of healing,” she says of the Obama Administration proposal, in 2016, to put the abolitionist hero on the third most commonly used bill in America. While the Trump Administration has put the idea on hold, U.S. representatives Elijah Cummings (D–Md.) and John Katko (R–N.Y.) recently reintroduced bipartisan legislation in Congress that aims to revive the currency effort.
“She was a leader who has earned the right to be on the bill,” says Tina. “We have to remember when this country was formed, it was done so within a racially segregated, male-dominated society. Women were not allowed any titled or lead roles or consideration; black women were not even thought of.” For Lauren, the lessons of Tubman’s work—including how she advocated for women’s voting rights and provided care to the aged, infirm, and homeless—are essential in 2019. “The balance of responsibility. The risk and reward in loving all people, but especially her own people unselfishly,” she ticks off the list. “Being guided by an inherent and deeply rooted faith. Having an unwavering conviction regarding equality, justice, and economic opportunity…. She was humble and dignified, but powerful beyond measure.”
Now, welcome back to 2017. Harriet Tubman’s place on the $20 is now in jeopardy, and it’s all thanks to the Trump administration.
In an appearance on CNBC Thursday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was asked for his thoughts on the currency makeover—and his response was anything but enthusiastic.
“It’s not something that I’m focused on at the moment,” he said.
Mnuchin explained that the Treasury’s main concern in creating new bills is preventing counterfeiting. But even with the Obama administration’s plans to make sure the new bills wouldn’t be easy to forge, Mnuchin certainly isn’t rushing to put the iconic abolitionist on the $20 bill.
“People have been on the bills for a long period of time,” he said. “This is something we’ll consider. Right now, we have a lot more important issues to focus on.”
The $20 bill wasn’t the only piece of currency in line for a modern-day makeover. The backs of both the $10 and $5 bills would be redesigned to include tributes to the women’s suffrage movement and the civil rights movement, respectively. Mnuchin didn’t bring up those changes in the interview, so it’s unclear where they stand.
Considering how then-candidate Donald Trump responded to the new $20 when it was first announced, it’s almost a given that Mnuchin wouldn’t commit to updating the bill. After former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew presented the revised currency to the public, Trump dismissed the news as “pure political correctness.” He praised Andrew Jackson for his “history of tremendous success” and told NBC’s Matt Lauer that he would “love to leave Andrew Jackson and see if we can maybe come up with another denomination.”
“Maybe we do the $2 bill or we do another bill,” Trump said at the time.
Considering the White House’s track record on women, Tubman’s future on the $20 bill could be in trouble. Can we return to that flashback now?
