Remembering 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was brutally murdered on this day, August 28, 1955, by white supremacists in Mississippi. Rest in peace, Emmett.
“I wonder if our white fellow men realize the true sense of meaning of brotherhood? For two hundred years we had toiled for them; the war of 1861 came and was ended, and we thought our race was forever freed from bondage, and that the two races could live in unity with each other, but when we read almost every day of what is being done to my race by some whites in the South, I sometimes ask, “Was the war in vain? Has it brought freedom, in the full sense of the word, or had it made our conditions more hopeless?…
There are still good friends to the negro. Why, there are still thousands….Man thinks two hundred years is a long time, and it is, too; but it is only as a week to God, and in his own time…the South will be like the North, and when it comes it will be prized higher than we prize the North to-day. God is just; when he created man he made him in his image, and never intended one should misuse the other. All men are born free and equal in his sight.”
Elizabeth Keckley was born enslaved and lived in Dinwiddie County and Petersburg as a young girl. She purchased her freedom working as a seamstress after moving to Missouri. With her freedom, she became the most sought after dress maker in Washington D.C. Her talents as a seamstress, both before and during the Civil War, led to her being chosen as the personal dressmaker of Mary Todd Lincoln. Over the years, both women became good friends and Mrs. Lincoln looked on Elizabeth as one of her closest confidantes during the White House years.
“Every where the years bring to all enough of sin and sorrow; but in slavery the very dawn of life is darkened by these shadows. Even the little child, who is accustomed to wait on her mistress and her children, will learn, before she is twelve years old, why it is that her mistress hates such and such a one among the slaves. Perhaps the child’s own mother is among those hated ones. She listens to violent outbreaks of jealous passion, and cannot help understanding what is the cause. She will become prematurely knowing in evil things. Soon she will learn to tremble when she hears her master’s footfall. She will be compelled to realize that she is no longer a child. If God has bestowed beauty upon her, it will prove her greatest curse. That which commands admiration in the white woman only hastens the degradation of the female slave.
I know that some are too much brutalized by slavery to feel the humiliation of their position; but many slaves feel it most acutely, and shrink from the memory of it. I cannot tell how much I suffered in the presence of these wrongs, now how I am still pained by the retrospect. My master met me at every turn, reminding me that I belonged to him, and swearing by heaven and earth that he would compel me to submit to him. If I went out for a breath of fresh air, after a day of unwearied toil, his footsteps dogged me. If I knelt by my mother’s grave, his dark shadow fell on me even there. The light heart which nature had given me became heavy with sad forebodings. The other slaves in my master’s house noticed the change. Many of them pitied me; but none dared to ask the cause. They had no need to inquire. They knew too well the guilty practices under that roof; and they were aware that to speak of them was an offence that never went unpunished.”
–Harriet Jacobs, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself
“My mother was sold at Richmond, Virginia, and a gentleman bought her who lived in Georgia, and we did not know that she was sold until she was gone; and the saddest thought was to me to know which way she had gone, and I used to go outside and look up to see if there was anything that would direct me, and I saw a clear place in the sky, and it seemed to me the way she had gone, and I watched it three and a half years, not knowing what that meant, and it was there the whole time that mother was gone from her little ones.”
“The every-day life of a slave on one of our southern plantations, however frequently it may have been described, is generally little known at the North. The principal food of those upon my master’s plantation consisted of corn meal, and salt herrings; to which was added in summer a little buttermilk, and the few vegetables which each might raise for himself and his family, on the little piece of ground which was assigned to him for the purpose, called a truck patch. The meals were two, daily. The first, or breakfast was taken at 12 o’clock, after laboring from daylight; and the other when the work of the remainder of the day was over. The only dress was of tow cloth, which for the young, and often even for those who had passed the period of childhood, consisted of a single garment, something like a shirt, but longer, reaching to the ankles; and for the older, a pair of pantaloons, or a gown, according to the sex, while some kind of round jacket, or overcoat, might be added in winter, a wool hat once in two or three years, for the males, and a pair of coarse shoes once a year. Our lodging was in log huts, of a single small room, with no other floor than the trodden earth, in which ten or a dozen person-men, women, and children-might sleep, but which could not protect them from dampness and cold, nor permit the existence of the common decencies of life. There were neither beds, nor furniture of any description-a blanket being the only addition to the dress of the day for protection from chillness of the air or the earth. In these hovels were we penned at night, and fed by day; here were the children born, and the sick-neglected. Such were the provisions for the daily toll of the slave.”
–Josiah Henson, “The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave. Narrated by himself. 1849
“Slavery has existed in this country too long and has stamped its character too deeply and indelibly, to be blotted out in a day or a year, or even in a generation. The slave will yet remain in some sense a slave, long after the chains are taken from his limbs, and the master will yet retain much of the pride, the arrogance, imperiousness and conscious superiority, and love of power, acquired by his former relation of master. Time, necessity, education, will be required to bring all classes into harmonious and natural relations…
Law and the sword can and will, in the end abolish slavery. But law and the sword cannot abolish the malignant slaveholding sentiment which has kept the slave system alive in this country during two centuries. Pride of race, prejudice against color, will raise this hateful clamor for oppression of the negro as heretofore. The slave having ceased to be the abject slave of a single master, his enemies will endeavor to make him the slave of society at large.”
-Frederick Douglass, December 28, 1862, Rochester, New York, Speech at the Spring Street AME Zion Church
Margaret Palm lived in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, along with 190 other free African-Americans, making up about 8% of the town’s population. She rented a white shack on the west end of Emmitsburg Road, and lived there with her husband, Alf Palm and their one child.
During the months leading up to the Battle of Gettysburg, African-American members of the Gettysburg community began fleeing their homes for fear that their freedom and safety would be in jeopardy, once the Confederate army invaded their little town.
There are many stories that surround the persona of “Mag Palm”, as she was called, some perhaps mere legends passed on by other civilians over the years. One legend refers to Mag as “Maggie Bluecoat”, referring to the story that she wore a blue coat of an officer of the War of 1812, and carried a musket while aiding other slaves in their fight for freedom from slavery.
One account, however, of an attempted kidnapping of Mag Palm by two local men is well known and well documented. Many free African-Americans were often victims of kidnapping by their own white neighbors, often to be sold off to Southerners for slavery.
Like the majority of African-American women in the Gettysburg community during the Civil War years, Mag made a hard living by scrubbing floors and washing the clothes of her white neighbors. One cold winter night in 1858, three years before the war even began, upon returning home from picking up her pay from one of her employers, Mag was attacked by two men who tried to tie her hands and take her away. . Mag managed to fight both men off with the help of another neighbor, John Karseen, a store owner in town, who witnessed the attack. Years later Mag Palm was photographed demonstrating how the men bound her hands and documented the attack for history.
During the battle, her home on Emmitsburg Road was occupied by the Union army and eventually destroyed in the fighting on the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg, July 3, 1863. Despite hardships in her own marriage, as her husband drank and was often prone to fits of rage, she managed to buy her own home again along Long Lane, a black community in the town, after the battle was finally over. She continued to struggle financially and was never able to stop beating rugs and scrubbing floors for a living.
Mag Palm passed away in October of 1896 from a heart ailment. She was buried in the Lincoln Cemetery in Gettysburg, among many other African-American civilians of the town. Her courageous story of struggle and survival is only one of the many forgotten African-American civilian stories of the women who lived and survived the battles fought right in their own communities, during the Civil War.
Mary Elizabeth Bowser-Freed Slave, Union Spy, and Abolitionist
Mary Elizabeth Bowser was born Mary Jane Richards on May 17, 1846, near Richmond, Virginia. She was born a slave to the Van Lew family, Eliza Baker and John Van Lew, of Richmond, Virginia.
Records show that Mary was baptized at St. John’s Church, the white congregation of the Van Lew family, as opposed to the First African Baptist Church in Richmond. This fact proves that Mary was treated differently by other slaves, by the Van Lew family from birth.
When she was of age, Eliza and John’s daughter, Elizabeth, sent Mary north to get an education. In 1885, she sent her to Liberia for missionary work and she did not return to the Van Lew home until 1860 again.
A few days after the battle of Fort Sumter, Mary married Wilson Bowser on April 16, 1861, in the same church she was baptized in. The Civil War had just begun.
During the war, Mary was instrumental in helping Elizabeth with her spy operation and aided her in helping escaped slaves take refuge in the Van Lew mansion. Mary, as well as many of the slaves freed by the Van Lew family, completed dangerous missions to get information to General Grant about the movements of the Confederate army. Mary even managed to obtain a position as a servant in the household of Jefferson and Varina Davis. She worked directly for Varina Davis and managed to learn about important strategies and plans of the Confederate government.
Soon after the war, Mary Bowser worked as a teacher to freed slaves in Richmond and, in 1867, founded her own school in Georgia. She alone taught young children and adults, all former slaves, to read and write.
A letter surviving with the date, June 1867, stated her new name as Mary Garvin and the intention that she would be joining her new husband in the West Indies.
The year of her death is unknown, but a memorial plot was placed in her memory at Woodland Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. It honors her memory as an agent who helped saved the Union during the Civil War. The stone reads, “Mary Elizabeth Bowser, Born 1840, Union Military Intelligence Agent, She risked her life and liberty so that all could know freedom.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an author and abolitionist who wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin-Or, Life Among the Lowly”, in 1852. At the time, the book caused a sensation throughout the country, especially in the South. Stowe’s story opened up the country’s eyes to the hideous institution of slavery more than ever.
Stowe, the wife of the staunch abolitionist, Calvin Ellis Stowe, and an abolitionist herself, was once described by President Lincoln upon their meeting as “the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is considered the bestselling and most impactful book of the 19th century, and ranks second in Literature only to the Bible.
Hello. We’ve been writing this blog every day for almost twelve months now. As it was our intention to find out why every single day of the year is BRILLIANT, we now have less that a week to go. If we make it, there will be five more posts after this one. You can also find this blog on Wordpress, along with a short explanation of how it came about, and in which we reveal which of us has actually written all of this on the ’about’ page. Thank you all for reading, liking and re-posting. It’s been fun to reach so many people across the world from our small corner of rural North Yorkshire. Will we pick up three more followers to make it a round hundred before March 15th? Probably not…
Why March 10th is BRILLIANT
Freedom
Today we are celebrating the life of Harriet Tubman. Harriet was born a slave in Maryland. Because of this, we don’t know when her birthday was. Harriet did not even know what year she was born, never mind what day. It was probably some time between 1820 and 1825. Harriet escaped from slavery in 1849. Then she returned to free many other slaves. She was a spy for the Union during the Civil War. In later life she was active in the cause of women’s suffrage and built an old people’s home for coloured people. So we can’t celebrate her birthday, but because she did so many fantastic things in her life, we do know that she died on March 10th 1913.
Harriet was born Araminta Harriet Ross (Minty) to parents Ben Ross and Harriet ‘Rit’ Green who were both slaves. They were owned by Anthony Thompson and Mary Brodess. Ben and Rit had nine children and three of their daughters were sold to a distant plantation, separating them from the family forever. When someone else came to buy her youngest son, Rit hid him for a month and then threatened to split open the head of anyone who tried to take him away. The sale was abandoned. It was probably a formative experience for young Minty and likely influenced her belief in the possibilities of resistance.
She had a terrible childhood, being hired out to people who beat her. As an adolescent she witnessed an incident when a slave was found out of the fields without permission. His owner ordered Minty to assist him in restraining the man but she refused. The slave owner then threw a 2 lb metal weight at him, but it missed him and hit her on the head. It was a serious injury that she never recovered from. She suffered from seizures and periods of narcolepsy for the rest of her life. Already a deeply religious person, she also began to experience visions and vivid dreams that she interpreted as signs from God.
Her father was freed at the age of 45, though in fact, this made little difference to his status, as he still had to keep working for his former owner. Later, Harriet would find out that her mother was also supposed to have been freed at 45, but her owners had ignored the fact. She was not in a position to challenge this legally. In 1844 she married a free man called John Tubman and it was about this time she changed her name to Harriet. Not much is known about their marriage but if they had any children, they would have had the same status as Harriet and would also have been slaves.
In 1849, she escaped from her owners along with two of her brothers. They lost heart and returned to the plantation and Harriet went back with them. Shortly afterwards, she escaped again, this time alone. She would have got away using a series of safe houses known as the Underground Railroad and she managed to get across the state border to Pennsylvania where there was no slavery. Later she said: “When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.”
But rather than stay safe in the north, Harriet returned to Maryland in 1850 to free members of her family. It would be the first of many covert trips she made across the border. Occasionally she came across a former owner but she cleverly managed to avoid detection. Simply by carrying a few chickens around, or pretending to read a newspaper (she couldn’t read) she found that the men simply didn’t notice her. As well as members of her family, including her parents, she guided many other slaves to freedom. In 1851, she attempted to free her husband, John Tubman, but found that he had married someone else and was quite happy where he was. Rather than make a scene, she just found other slaves who did want to be free and took them instead. Harriet Tubman was given the nickname 'Moses’ because, like Moses, she led her people to freedom.
In 1850, the US government passed a law that allowed escaped slaves to be returned even when they were living in a state where there was no slavery. Harriet re-routed the Underground Railroad to Canada, where people would be safe. In 1859 she was sold a piece of land in Auburn, New York by a US senator called William H Seward who was a fervent opponent of slavery. Despite the risk of arrest she brought her parents, who were then in Canada, to live with her there.
During the Civil War she worked for the Union Army as a cook and a nurse, but she was later employed as a spy. Her ability to travel in secret in enemy territory was extremely useful. In 1863, she led an assault on plantations along the Combahee River in South Carolina. She guided three steamboats around mines that had been laid by the Confederate Army. They burned the plantations and freed more than 750 slaves.
Harriet was never paid very much for her work during the Civil War and she remained poor. She worked to support her family and also took in boarders. Among them was a Civil War veteran called Nelson Davis. They fell in love and were married in 1869. He was twenty-two years younger than her. They lived together for twenty years. Later in life, she devoted herself to the cause of women’s suffrage. She travelled New York, Boston and Washington DC speaking of women’s right to vote. She described her actions during the Civil War and used many other examples of women from history as evidence of women’s equality to men. In 1897, in Boston, there were a series of receptions honouring her lifetime of service to the nation. Harriet had spent so much of her hard earned money helping others that she had to sell a cow in order to but the train ticket to get there.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, she donated a piece of land to build a home for aged and poor coloured people. In 1911, she was admitted there herself and died in 1913. Since her death, Harriet Tubman has become a magnificent source of inspiration for civil right activists. She devoted her whole life to helping others and freed somewhere in the region of a thousand slaves. It was dangerous work but they all made it through, she never lost a single life.
The Cultural Landscape at Harriet Tubman National Historical Park
Our nation has a rich legacy of cultural landscapes – from carriage roads to battlefields, designed gardens to vernacular homesteads, and industrial complexes to river valley settlements. The NPS Park Cultural Landscapes Program promotes the stewardship of significant landscapes through research, planning, maintenance, training, and education.
This video introduces the cultural landscape at Harriet Tubman National Historical Park and invites viewers to learn more. NPS staff from the park, descendants of Harriet Tubman, and other people associated with the area describe the features and significance of this unique landscape and actions that have been taken to preserve it.
This video, announced on March 10 in honor of Harriet Tubman Day, is the latest in a series of videos designed to facilitate the transfer of knowledge gained through cultural landscape research and communicate unique aspects of a particular landscape’s history and significance.
“The Cultural Landscape at Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park” is the latest addition to the Olmsted Center’s cultural landscape video series. Each video highlights the unique aspects of a particular landscape’s history and significance, and together they help to communicate the process and outcomes of cultural landscape research.
Growing up in Maryland, author Ta-Nehisi Coates was enthralled by stories of Harriet Tubman, the 19th century abolitionist who operated the Underground Railroad on the state’s Eastern Shore. He read about Tubman’s efforts to lead enslaved people to freedom, and was struck by the surreal qualities of her story.
“It just seemed wild,” he says. “Who is this person who has fainting spells and yet has never lost a passenger? Who is this black woman in the 19th century who, when somebody is scared and wants to turn back pulls out a gun and made threats, ‘You ain’t turning back!’? Who is this person who just strides through history?”
Coates read one biography of Tubman in which the biographer admitted that historians aren’t quite sure how she managed to lead so many people to freedom. “Whenever I hear, 'We don’t know how this happens,’ my mind starts turning, you know? I start imagining things,” he says.
Coates had always been a fan of comic books and pulpy adventure stories, and he began to imagine the Underground Railroad through fantastical eyes. His debut novel, The Water Dancer, is set in slave times and centers on Hiram, a man born into slavery who meets Tubman, and learns that they share a magical power to teleport enslaved people to freedom.
“I did a considerable amount of research, and when you look at how African Americans described themselves during that period, and when you look at how they talk about their own escapes from slavery, magic is often very much a part [of it],” he says. “The Water Dancer … tries to take a somewhat forgotten tradition in African American resistance and render it seriously.”
Ms. Harriet Tubman has an astonishing legacy: a leader of enslaved people to freedom, a nurse, spy, and cook in the Civil War, a caretaker for the sick and elderly, and a suffragist. Her actions have touched generations of people looking to improve the quality of the human condition. Proof of her reach can be seen in the art created by those inspired by her extraordinary life.
Visual Art
In this portrait, painted by William H. Johnson, Ms. Tubman stands before a day and night connected by a railroad passing by her feet. She is tall, taller than everything else, and is wearing a bonnet that evokes a Christ-like halo – she is “the Moses of her people,” after all.
American folk music icon Woody Guthrie wrote the biographical tune “Harriet Tubman’s Ballad” in celebration of her life. The most powerful line of the song?
To Abe Lincoln this I said: You’ve just crippled that snake of slavery We’ve got to fight to kill him dead.
While this poem by Eloise Greenfield includes a few exaggerations about Ms. Tubman’s life, the beauty in her journey remains: her determination, selflessness, and courage ensured that she and those she led to freedom “wasn’t going to stay [a slave] either.”
Harriet Tubman by Eloise Greenfield
Harriet Tubman didn’t take no stuff Wasn’t scared of nothing neither Didn’t come in this world to be no slave And wasn’t going to stay one either
“Farewell!” she sang to her friends one night She was mighty sad to leave ‘em But she ran away that dark, hot night Ran looking for her freedom
She ran to the woods and she ran through the woods With the slave catchers right behind her And she kept on going ‘til she got to the North Where those mean men couldn’t find her
Nineteen times she went back to the South To get three hundred others She ran for her freedom nineteen times To save Black sisters and brothers
Harriet Tubman didn’t take no stuff Wasn’t scared of nothing neither Didn’t come in this world to be no slave And didn’t stay one either
And didn’t stay one either
This December, we will be releasing our newest book, Harriet Tubman For Beginners by Annette Alston and illustrated by Lynsey Hutchinson. Follow this blog to learn more about Harriet’s life and legacy as we lead up to the release.
Ms. Harriet Tubman has an astonishing legacy: a leader of enslaved people to freedom, a nurse, spy, and cook in the Civil War, a caretaker for the sick and elderly, and a suffragist. Her actions have touched generations of people looking to improve the quality of the human condition. Proof of her reach can be seen in the art created by those inspired by her extraordinary life.
Visual Art
In this portrait, painted by William H. Johnson, Ms. Tubman stands before a day and night connected by a railroad passing by her feet. She is tall, taller than everything else, and is wearing a bonnet that evokes a Christ-like halo – she is “the Moses of her people,” after all.
American folk music icon Woody Guthrie wrote the biographical tune “Harriet Tubman’s Ballad” in celebration of her life. The most powerful line of the song?
To Abe Lincoln this I said: You’ve just crippled that snake of slavery We’ve got to fight to kill him dead.
While this poem by Eloise Greenfield includes a few exaggerations about Ms. Tubman’s life, the beauty in her journey remains: her determination, selflessness, and courage ensured that she and those she led to freedom “wasn’t going to stay [a slave] either.”
Harriet Tubman by Eloise Greenfield
Harriet Tubman didn’t take no stuff Wasn’t scared of nothing neither Didn’t come in this world to be no slave And wasn’t going to stay one either
“Farewell!” she sang to her friends one night She was mighty sad to leave ‘em But she ran away that dark, hot night Ran looking for her freedom
She ran to the woods and she ran through the woods With the slave catchers right behind her And she kept on going ‘til she got to the North Where those mean men couldn’t find her
Nineteen times she went back to the South To get three hundred others She ran for her freedom nineteen times To save Black sisters and brothers
Harriet Tubman didn’t take no stuff Wasn’t scared of nothing neither Didn’t come in this world to be no slave And didn’t stay one either
And didn’t stay one either
This December, we will be releasing our newest book, Harriet Tubman For Beginners by Annette Alston and illustrated by Lynsey Hutchinson. Follow this blog to learn more about Harriet’s life and legacy as we lead up to the release.
Ms. Harriet Tubman has an astonishing legacy: a leader of enslaved people to freedom, a nurse, spy, and cook in the Civil War, a caretaker for the sick and elderly, and a suffragist. Her actions have touched generations of people looking to improve the quality of the human condition. Proof of her reach can be seen in the art created by those inspired by her extraordinary life.
Visual Art
In this portrait, painted by William H. Johnson, Ms. Tubman stands before a day and night connected by a railroad passing by her feet. She is tall, taller than everything else, and is wearing a bonnet that evokes a Christ-like halo – she is “the Moses of her people,” after all.
American folk music icon Woody Guthrie wrote the biographical tune “Harriet Tubman’s Ballad” in celebration of her life. The most powerful line of the song?
To Abe Lincoln this I said: You’ve just crippled that snake of slavery We’ve got to fight to kill him dead.
While this poem by Eloise Greenfield includes a few exaggerations about Ms. Tubman’s life, the beauty in her journey remains: her determination, selflessness, and courage ensured that she and those she led to freedom “wasn’t going to stay [a slave] either.”
Harriet Tubman by Eloise Greenfield
Harriet Tubman didn’t take no stuff Wasn’t scared of nothing neither Didn’t come in this world to be no slave And wasn’t going to stay one either
“Farewell!” she sang to her friends one night She was mighty sad to leave ‘em But she ran away that dark, hot night Ran looking for her freedom
She ran to the woods and she ran through the woods With the slave catchers right behind her And she kept on going ‘til she got to the North Where those mean men couldn’t find her
Nineteen times she went back to the South To get three hundred others She ran for her freedom nineteen times To save Black sisters and brothers
Harriet Tubman didn’t take no stuff Wasn’t scared of nothing neither Didn’t come in this world to be no slave And didn’t stay one either
And didn’t stay one either
This December, we will be releasing our newest book, Harriet Tubman For Beginners by Annette Alston and illustrated by Lynsey Hutchinson. Follow this blog to learn more about Harriet’s life and legacy as we lead up to the release.
Harriet Tubman is known to all as a conductor of the Underground Railroad who led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom. It is for this legacy that her stoic, weathered face was elected by popular vote to grace the $20 bill in 2020. (However, the Treasury Secretary may not go forward with this decision made during the Obama Administration, an infuriating announcement you can read more about here.)
Her extraordinary life, far-reaching actions, and immeasurable impact on those she knew have elevated her to a myth-like status in American history. But Harriet was a real, flesh-and-blood woman who spent her life fighting for a better life for African Americans. To understand her life in full, here are five important things to know about Harriet Tubman:
Harriet Tubman is known to all as a conductor of the Underground Railroad who led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom. It is for this legacy that her stoic, weathered face was elected by popular vote to grace the $20 bill in 2020. (However, the Treasury Secretary may not go forward with this decision made during the Obama Administration, an infuriating announcement you can read more about here.)
Her extraordinary life, far-reaching actions, and immeasurable impact on those she knew have elevated her to a myth-like status in American history. But Harriet was a real, flesh-and-blood woman who spent her life fighting for a better life for African Americans. To understand her life in full, here are five important things to know about Harriet Tubman:
1. Harriet Tubman wasn’t always, well, Harriet Tubman. She went by an assortment of names and nicknames, each denoting a different stage of her life and what she represented to her fellow African Americans. Born Araminta “Minty” Ross, she changed her name to Harriet Tubman after marrying John Tubman. (Her choice of first name is possibly in homage to her mother.) As a leader of the enslaved to freedom, she was the Moses of Her People. As a pre-war abolitionist, she was General Tubman. As a nurse in the Civil War, she was Black Moses. As an outspoken suffragist, she was Mother Tubman. And in her post-war years, she was, simply, Aunt Harriet.
2. In her tireless quest for black liberation, Harriet was an armed spy and scout for the Union during the Civil War. Her most notable accomplishment is her pivotal role in the Combahee River Raid. Under Colonel Montgomery, Harriet helped lead Union ships into the South Carolina harbor through mine-filled waters. Once they arrived, Union soldiers stole Confederate supplies and set fire to plantations. Amidst this chaos, 750 enslaved were freed and carried to the North in Union ships. The Moses of Her People once again led the slaves out of Egypt.
3. Post-war, Harriet used her seemingly boundless energy to support women’s suffrage. She was a member of the National Women’s Suffrage Association, founded by famous suffragette Susan B. Anthony, a fugitive slave harborer for the Underground Railroad and a wartime abolitionist. Later, put off by the racism of Southern suffragettes who were not inclusive of black women, she joined the National Association of Colored Women, where she was the keynote speaker at their inaugural meeting (as well as the oldest woman in attendance).
4. Always looking for ways to help others, Harriet long dreamed of opening a house for elderly and disabled blacks. Even after her own home caught fire (and she and her second husband, Nelson Charles Davis, rebuilt it literally brick by brick, as he was a brick-maker), Harriet was intent on seeing her dream realized. After years of mortgages, reconstruction, and debt, the Harriet Tubman Home for Aged and Infirmed Negroes (later shortened to the Harriet Tubman Home) opened in 1908.
5. After everything she had done for the Union, from spying and scouting to nursing and cooking, Harriet was never paid for her work in the War. Deeply unsatisfied with this injustice, Harriet spent the remainder of her life arguing for full compensation. It wasn’t until 2003 that the government corrected its wrongdoing when Hillary Clinton introduced a bill to pay Harriet’s pension, a total of $11,750, to the Harriet Tubman Home.
This December, we will be releasing our newest book, Harriet Tubman For Beginners by Annette Alston and illustrated by Lynsey Hutchinson. Alston delves into Tubman’s achievements, hardships, and faith while Hutchinson’s artwork punctuates the pages. Follow this blog to learn more about Harriet’s life and legacy.
