About

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, provide 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.

Seeing the paintings next to the original currency is both an emotional and artistic experience. The sheer scale of slave imagery that was used on money during the Civil War – and later on bonds, certificates and various financial instruments up to the mid-1960s – can finally be appreciated, while the convergence of economics and white supremacy is made clear at a glance.