Black History Month – Harriet Tubman

One clear piece of news shows the changes in approach to racism in the current administration.  Harriet Tubman was supposed to be on the $20 bill replacing Andrew Jackson who led the displacement and death of Native Americans from their lands.  Harriet Tubman will be on the twenty soon, so it is a good place to start this month’s tribute to Black History.

The latest movie about Harriet Tubman’s life was Harriet , a biographical film starring Cynthia Erivo in the title role. Recently deceased great actress, Cicely Tyson portrayed her for the NBC miniseries A Woman Called Moses.  There have been several other movies, plays, books, operas, statues and murals honoring Harriet Tubman, a true American heroine.

She was commonly considered the “Moses of her people” . Harriet Tubman was enslaved, escaped, and helped others gain their freedom as a “conductor” of the Underground Railroad. Tubman also served as a scout, spy, guerrilla soldier, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War.  As a slave, she worked as a nursemaid, field hand and cook.  When she was only 12 she was injured during her refusal to punish another slave and suffered seizures for the rest of her life as a result.

Fleeing captivity she went to Philadelphia but a year later went back to Baltimore to rescue her sister and two children in the first of some 20 dangerous rescue missions where she led some 300 fugitive enslaved people along the Underground Railroad to Canada.  It is legend that she never lost a fugitive she was leading to freedom.  She was focused and tough, saying “You’ll be free, or die”.

During the Civil War, Harriet served as a scout, nurse and laundress for Union forces.  Her pay was so non-existent that she supported herself by selling homemade baked goods.  But she didn’t stop there.  She and her husband set up a home for orphans and the elderly and Harriet became active the woman’s suffrage movement.  So significant was her contributions that 30 years after her work during the Civil War, Congress passed a bill providing her a very modest pension.

The story of Harriet Tubman is the story of a woman of conscience, courage and conviction.  It is the story of a true American heroine.