The iconic lantern and the chains that hold it up are even pictured in the official White House logo.įact check: Barack Obama mentioned Juneteenth multiple times while president $20 bills have depicted this lantern since 1998 “It hangs serenely under the floodlit North Portico and creates the glowing backdrop for the nightly televised news reports of White House correspondents,” the White House Historical Association says of the lantern on its website. as part of President Theodore Roosevelt’s Beaux-Arts renovation. The “distinctive wrought iron and glass lantern” was hung in the North Portico of the White House in 1902 by Edward F. The figure the meme is misinterpreting is a lantern that’s hung at the White House entrance for 118 years. The meme claims a lantern hanging outside of the White House is actually a hanging Black man and that the shrubs are a crowd of people watching. Dont cheapen the movement of all people looking to make a change,” Gregg Simmers commented.Īnalysis of the $20 bill and White House decor reveals the meme misinterprets an image of a lantern to be a lynching.īen-Ahparayam has not yet returned USA TODAY’s request for comment.įact check: Verifying President Donald Trump's alleged failures in office The lantern has hung outside the White House since 1902 “Stop it, do not minimize the fight with some BS! Whomever you are, stop it. Other commenters argued the meme discredited congruent conversations about systematic racism occurring across the world. "Den what you think is bushes is a whole bunch of white people together lookin up at him." "The illusion is a lantern but you look closely and focus you a negro wit a a long sleeve wit suspenders half body chest up," Keiazja West commented. Some Facebook users saw the body and recognized the image as a symbolic illusion. “Its really a black man hanging … and da white folk jus looking…” reads a meme with two blurry images of the $20 bill's White House vignette.Ĭommenters were quick to fact-check the meme and identify the body it mentioned as a lamp.
“I was today years old when I found out the back of the $20 bill is a brother hanging while a whole crowd of people watch!” Mayakahla Ben-Ahparayam posted on Facebook June 18. The claim: The back of the $20 bill shows a Black man hanging and a crowd watchingĪs Americans assess the racist undertones of some longstanding statues and monuments, a viral meme is falsely interpreting an image on the back of the $20 bill to be a lynching.
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