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Sacramento State Professor Emeritus Excited To See Harriet Tubman On $20 Bill

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – If money talks, then this is a whole new conversation.

Inside her art studio, no one could be happier about the new Harriet Tubman $20 bill than one Sacramento State professor emeritus.

Deborah Pittman is beaming.

"Joy? Unmitigated joy. I was very excited," Pittman said.

She creates pottery out of an Oak Park ceramics studio now.

"I just couldn't stop smiling all day," Pittman said.

But as a music professor at Sacramento State, she co-wrote a play – performed off-Broadway in the 1990s – celebrating the life of Harriet Tubman.

Titled "Harriet and Anne," the performance explored the idea of Tubman traveling in time and saving Anne Frank.

The moral of the story was a universal message.

"It's not about the pain, it's about the spirit, and the spirit to stand up when something is wrong," Pittman said.

Pittman pulled old photos from the play rehearsals.

"Even today, my mind cannot imagine me, with the resources that I have, going somewhere frightening and rescuing people," Pittman said.

Pittman says as a child in New York City during the busing movement there, she was never taught about Tubman's role in history.

"That's criminal. And I think of all of those young women, and I think of all those young women and men before that who could have taken inspiration from this leader and didn't get a chance to," Pittman said.

Now new generations will be exposed to Tubman's story in a whole new way.

"It's in your face, there's no way to avoid it," Pittman said.

And from her art studio, Professor Pitman is already spinning ideas of a revival of her Tubman play.

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