To the Editor:

Re “Stepping Back From Plan for a Tubman $20 Bill” (news article, Sept. 1):

When the Trump administration put on hold the plan to place Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, it illuminated the selective nature of supposed concerns about “erasing history.”

In President Trump’s view, the myriad “beautiful statues” honoring generals who killed for human slavery simply represent America’s “history and culture,” and must be preserved. But we need not commemorate a black abolitionist who risked her life to rescue slaves, because this would be “pure political correctness.”

However, you report, Mr. Trump said in April that he might support putting Harriet Tubman on the $2 bill. Since this is the least used item of currency, Mr. Trump has succeeded in finding the monetary equivalent of sending an African-American heroine to the back of the bus.

MITCHELL ZIMMERMAN

PALO ALTO, CALIF.

The writer was a civil rights worker with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the South in the 1960s.