This weekend an American icon stepped out of history to make an appearance in our town. Harriet Tubman, hero of the Underground Railroad, is known to every American for her role in leading around 70 friends and family through dangerous Slave States to sweet freedom in the North.
A bronzed monument, “Journey to Freedom” by North Carolina sculptor Wesley Wofford, is on a national tour and drew hundreds of people of every race to its unveiling in a little city park on the waterfront.
Tubman was born into slavery in Maryland in 1820. At age 5, she was hired out by her owners as a nursemaid, field hand, cook and woodcutter. At age 12 an overseer tried to force her to participate in the beating of another enslaved person. She refused and was struck in the head. From this incident she suffered seizures for the rest of her life.
In 1849, Tubman heard rumors that she was about to be sold away from her husband and family and set out to escape north to New York, a free state.
Over the next 10 years, despite the dangers of returning over and over to a slave state, Tubman did return, to save 70 friends and relatives on the “Underground Railroad”. Not only did she serve as their guide and protector on the journey, she also assisted them in finding work and establishing new lives in free states and Canada.
During the Civil War, this brave lady left her own freedom to come here to South Carolina and join the Union cause, serving as a scout, nurse, laundress, and a spy.
While Tubman herself never set foot in Georgetown, one of her first rescues came here, her nephew James Bowley. Tubman also funded the boy’s education to become a lawyer and Bowley became a distinguished citizen and a member of the State House of Representatives. Also, right after the Civil War in the South conditions were desperate with few resources or supplies available for the recently freed enslaved people. Tubman, who had first hand knowledge of the dire situation, used her influence among other abolitionists to get funds to Georgetown to help out.
With the state of race relations in this country, it was heartwarming to see the large mixed crowd on Saturday for the unveiling ceremony. And every time we have driven down Front Street since, there have been parents with children gathered around the figures.
Politicians can take the books out of our libraries, the facts out of our history classes, the truth out of our colleges — but maybe a spark of hope, for all races of humanity, remains, here in the small towns and the families in America.
Rainey Park, Old Post Office in the background
I was not sure there were any statues left in the South.
ReplyDeleteIt look impressive.
ReplyDeleteAnything that brings people together, without regard to race, is a much-needed activity in today’s polarized society, with demagogues like DeSantis trying to divide people at every turn in their lives. Bravo to everyone involved in this event and to the people who took the time to participate and promote friendship and human understanding.
ReplyDeleteWell said - it is very sad.
ReplyDeleteBut Australia has not the best of reputations regarding our aboriginals and our treatment of them.
Then again your negros were transported as slaves.
Colin
If you ever travel to the Eastern Shore of MD there's a wonderful museum dedicated to Tubman there. She was a marvel!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful sculptures in honor of a great heroine. During the Civil Rights movement we often sang "Follow the Drinking Gourd" and I think she may have inspired that song, about following the Big Dipper and the North Star to freedom.
ReplyDeleteDear Cynthia, I still have tears in my eyes from reading your posting on Harriet Tubman. Thank you for the beauty of your words, the honesty, the compassion, the respect. I first learned about her when I was in grad school in my thirties. An amazing human being with iron within and a thirst not just for freedom for herself but for all. I'm still crying, Cynthia. Thank you for showing us the statue and writing about Harriet and for your final words about politicians. I just wish some of them would read your post. Thank you, Dee and the cats.
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful post you have written. I wonder if it will come to the west coast?
ReplyDeleteWhat a heart warming story. Thanks for sharing. I am pleased to read the last paragraph where good people are still around.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your dedication and hard work in writing this blog
ReplyDeleteVery interesting. I have many books on the US Civil war and the causalities are horrific.
ReplyDeleteMore that the causalities of the combined WW1, WW 2, Korean War, that stupid war in Vietnam and
other incursions of other conflicts.
It is worth a trip to just outside of Atlanta to visit and reflect at Stone Mountain National Park.
The carving of the heroes of the South on that mountain face are fantastic plus the methods of
transport - trains, canon carts etc .
I wish that I had gone to Gettysburg also.
Cheers
Colin