BOTTOM LINE : The Color of Money

Dead white guys may have a monopoly on U.S. currency portraiture, but black Americans are making an appearance on other financial instruments.

Personal checks are among them, but when Ty Canady went looking for them, she didn’t like what she saw: “They featured tiny black and white pictures. You couldn’t even tell they were black.”

Canady, 23, thought she could do better. So she rounded up her brother and a friend and founded AfrocenCheck, a San Diego-based business that makes checks featuring color portraits of figures such as Harriet Tubman, W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington. Three banks, two in San Diego and one in Brooklyn, offer AfrocenChecks, and more than 300 people have purchased them, Canady says.

“I know people of all different races who have ordered the checks--not just African Americans,” says Senta Johnson, 24, an assistant controller for a trust company. “I love them.”

Canady, who grew up in South-Central L.A., hopes to expand to include other ethnic groups. “I’d also like to have the checks include Native Americans, Asian Americans and Jews,” Canady says, “and eventually expand to a ‘unity’ check featuring a leader from every ethnic group.”

Until then, though, she’s content that AfrocenChecks are making a statement. “These checks,” she says, “symbolize the economic power of the black dollar.”