Black History Month….

 When we think of Black History Month, there are some names that readily come to mind.  One of those, for me, is Harriet Tubman.

This book, by Erica Armstrong Dunbar, is a biography of the woman who is known for the Underground Railroad, an operation to guide slaves to freedom.  It is one that was on the United Methodist Women (now United Women in Faith) reading list a few years ago.  

I was reminded of several details as I reread this book.  The author has, through extensive research, been able to create a family tree for Harriet.  Her grandmother, Modesty, was sold into slavery in the Upper Chesapeake on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  Modesty gave birth to a daughter who was named Harriet, known as “Rit” by her family.  Like many, many others, Modesty disappeared from the record books, and her existence is proven only by her daughter and granddaughter, named Araminta at birth.  It was in later years that “Minty” adopted for herself the name of Harriet. 

Harriet beat the odds.  The years of slavery strengthened her body and her resolve and led to her successful escape.  She crossed the state line of Pennsylvania in the fall of 1849.  Knowing no one, she would have been lonely and isolated.  This is a quote from her later: “There was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom.  I was a stranger in a strange land; and my home, after all, was down in Maryland; because my father, my mother, my bothers, and sisters, and friends were there.  But I was free and they should be free.”  That was her motivation to begin the network that led to freeing countless slaves, including her own aging parents.

Photographs of Harriet through the years.

Harriet didn’t restrict her activism to freeing slaves.  She worked to ensure that black women would be able to march in the Woman Suffrage Procession of 1913.  This was the first large political march organized in the nation’s capital.  The protest centered upon the need for an amendment to the constitution that would offer women the right to vote, a political demand that had been debated nearly sixty-five years earlier.  It would be 1920 before the passing of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.  It was years later, in 1965, that the Voting Rights Act led to voting rights for black Americans.

Unfortunately, Harriet became ill with pneumonia and passed away on March 10, 1913 at the age of 91.

What a remarkable life she led!