An art-based racial justice awareness project

On The Money is an art-based educational initiative featuring paintings of enslaved people discovered on Confederate and Southern states’ currency. Three hundred paintings by African American artist John W. Jones restore a sense of dignity to the enslaved subjects while shedding new light on the relationship between slavery, institutional racism, and the economic making of America.

The currency had monetary value because enslaved Africans were the free labor used to build the world’s most powerful economy. 
The currency had propaganda value because the same enslaved people are depicted on the money in an effort to legitimize an extreme form of institutional racism.