Curator's Choice
Like history? Love museums? From ancient relics to modern marvels, each episode of this show features a new museum and a sampling of some amazing artifacts housed there. What makes Curator's Choice truly special is our exclusive interviews with the unsung heroes of museums—the curators themselves. These guardians of history will share insights, anecdotes, and the often untold stories that breathe life into the artifacts they protect.
Through this podcast, our mission is to dispel the notion of museums as static, old, and dull spaces. Instead, we aim to reveal them as vibrant repositories brimming with mystery and wonder, one artifact at a time.
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Curator's Choice
Episode 66: Harriet Tubman Museum and Education Center
What was the Underground Railroad, really? Beyond the imagery of secret routes and hidden safe houses, it was a complex network of people, places, and powerful codes—codes in words, songs, and even the stars. Join us in today's episode at the Harriet Tubman Museum and Education Center in Cambridge, MD.
🌊 Moses of Her People 💪🏾
In this episode, we delve into the stories of Harriet Tubman, known as the Moses of her people, and explore how faith, resilience, and ingenuity helped guide countless individuals to freedom. We'll uncover the meaning behind songs like "Go Down Moses" and "Follow the Drinking Gourd", the significance of safe house signals, and the inspiring legacy of a woman whose courage knew no bounds.
🔗 Episode Links:
Harriet Tubman Museum and Education Center:
www.harriettubmanmuseumcenter.org
Curator's Choice - A podcast for history nerds and museum lovers
Sometimes, every now and again, there's a person born in this life to do incredible things, and she was that person.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Ayla Sparks and this is Curator's Choice, a podcast for history nerds and museum lovers. From ancient relics to modern marvels, each episode of this show features a new museum and a curator's choice of some amazing artifacts housed there. These guardians of history will share insights, anecdotes and the often untold stories that breathe life into the artifacts they protect. Thanks for tuning in to this Mighty Oak Media production and enjoy the show. Hello and welcome to another episode of Curator's Choice.
Speaker 2:Today on the show, we're looking at the Underground Railroad. Beyond the imagery of secret routes and hidden safe houses, it was a complex network of people, places and very powerful codes Codes in words, codes in songs and even codes in the stars. In this episode, we delve into the stories of Harriet Tubman, known as the Moses of her people, and explore how faith, resilience and ingenuity helped guide countless individuals to freedom. With Linda as our guide at the Harriet Tubman Museum and Education Center in Cambridge, maryland, she shares with us the incredible story of Harriet Tubman. So, without further ado, let's jump right in, with Linda At its core. What was the Underground Railroad?
Speaker 1:The Underground Railroad was a network of people, locations and code. So what do I mean by code? Code is the way they spoke, those that could write the way they wrote and those that could sing. It's the songs that they sang to signal folks that were getting ready to get on the Underground Railroad that it was time to come Harriet Tubman. So she was referred to as the Moses of her people. So this Underground Railroad went as far south as Mexico, as far north as Canada and west Utah, and we're finding more areas all throughout the United States because this is a real hot topic and archaeologists are digging in to get the history.
Speaker 1:Harriet Tubman, when she was coming back, she made her first walk in 1849 using this network. When I say people, 50% of the African Americans living in Maryland at the time were free. They were very instrumental in helping the movement of people. So you had the free African Americans, you had her father, benjamin Ross, samuel Green. They were station managers. They were enslaved people. They were double agents. Thompson's Plant plantation was a station stop along the Underground Railroad. The stops would be houses, barns, churches, all those instrumental in helping the movement of people. Harriet Tubman was considered the Moses of her people. She did her first walk in 1849. She comes back her first time in 1850. There's all this chatter about Harriet Tubman Born Araminta Ross. She changed her name. So Go Down Moses was a song that was sung in the fields. The enslaved were just singing these songs, but in fact it was code. May I sing one of the songs?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Go down Moses way down in Egypt land. Tell old Pharaoh to let my people go. When Moses went to Egypt land, let my people go. He made old Pharaoh understand. Let my people go.
Speaker 1:Egypt was the plantation. Pharaoh was the enslaver, moses was. You know, we know Moses from the Bible. Let my people go. That was Harriet's job. Let my people go. My people are going up north. They're going to go above the Mason-Dixon line to find freedom.
Speaker 1:So it was code. Another code song, real quickly. She had to follow the North Star. In the North American sky in the winter, the two most prevalent constellations, especially here is the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper. At the base of those two constellations is Polaris or the North Star.
Speaker 1:Another code song, not used so much here on the eastern shore, but certainly along the Underground Railroad, particularly in the far south. It was follow the drinking gourd. The next time you go out, look up at the muntra sky and outline it with your finger. It comes down, it goes under. There's the North Star back up, while the constellation it resembles a drinking gourd or a ladle. Follow the drinking gourd. Come on and follow the drinking gourd, for the old man is waiting just to carry you to freedom. Follow the drinking gourd. When the sun comes back and the first quell calls follow the drinking gourd, for the old man is waiting just to carry you to freedom. Follow the drinking gourd. There's a lot of singing going on because it was a way of dealing with the horrific conditions of slavery. It brought an enormous amount of hope where most were in despair, but singing and knowing that freedom would be yours. So there's many examples of how they traversed it, but that's when it was a network and Harriet Tubman was the best network.
Speaker 2:It makes a lot of sense when you think about it because, however annoying it may be, when you hear a jingle, it sticks in your head and you remember it, even if you don't want to. So encoding in a song is the best way to make sure that everybody can remember the instructions.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and they were so skillful, so incredibly smart to have created this code, this way of communicating to get to freedom.
Speaker 2:I do have a question. So I feel like this might be one of those things that's kind of an urban legend at this point, but I've heard many times that the quilts on barns were originally used as codes for the Underground Railroad. As codes for the Underground Railroad, the quilts were more.
Speaker 1:You heard more about that in the South than you did here.
Speaker 1:All this, although they can refer to Maryland as Little Mississippi, but it was more South Carolina, north Carolina, florida, that you heard that. Now historians have dispelled that. That was even possible. I read a passage where they would put the quilt out. They'd hang it on a line and put it out for two to three weeks and as the enslaved people were walking by they would see the coats, they'd see the bear claw, but historians have not been able to verify that. But similarly, the drinking gourd. I get into debates with really accomplished, credentialed historians who fight with me all the time. Drinking gourd was copyrighted in 1928, and then again in 1948. Absolutely, they were copyrighted long after slavery.
Speaker 1:The enslaved people had no idea about reducing songs to a music sheet with bars and lines and staffs. They didn't know that. So it's my contention that these rhythms, these cadences were stolen and they weren't given credit for it. So if I talk to people who have ties to their history in the South, they stand by the quilt, by the oral history, by the folklore. And who are we to really dispel any of it? Because we weren't there and neither were the historians.
Speaker 1:I'm more inclined to listen to Sarah Bradford who interviewed Harriet Tubman. I'm sticking with her. I've talked to many historians who say Sarah, embellish the story to sell books. They weren't there. It would make sense that the quilts could be. These are symbols that were believed to have been brought from the west coast of Africa, but I'm thinking unlikely that they would be able to hang a quilt for two to three weeks while enslaved people are walking by to understand what was going on. The songs, though? The songs I am so committed to because these are rhythms that they sang or hummed at the belly of those slave ships. I know that to be true.
Speaker 2:What were some of the other things that were signals to signal like a safe house? You've heard carvings on the door or things that you can only see in a certain light Lantern a lit lantern.
Speaker 1:We're in Dorchester County where she was born. Her father was enslaved in Caroline County. In Caroline County right now the Historical Society has restored 50 of the original safe houses, either barns or churches. Wow, the signal was a lit lantern. The Quakers were very instrumental in helping the movement of people. If the lantern was not lit, keep going, but if it was a lit candle it was safe to stop, so that we know was a signal.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think whenever you're thinking about the Underground Railroad as well, you have to realize it's not just this linear single trail. It was an incredibly complex organization.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. And the people made it successful, all those who helped, who put their lives on the line, who put their properties up to be safe houses. Each route was different. They were covert operations and had to elude the enslavers who really, by the way, just weren't as smart as they were. I mean for people to have come here, to have been captured, put on slave ships, made to endure that middle passage that took three to five months, sometimes come to a land they'd never seen, climate that they'd never had to deal with, language they never heard to be able to endure pretty brilliant human beings Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And speaking of brilliant people, harriet Tubman yes, I want to know more about what was her life like when she was enslaved.
Speaker 1:Her grandmother was brought here from the west coast of Africa Some books say Ghana, some say Senegal 1750-ish captured, put at the belly of that ship and made to endure that middle passage and brought here to Long Wharf, which is right down the street from where we are. Harriet Tubman had the benefit when she was on that slave ship. She was pregnant with Harriet Tubman's mother, harriet Tubman, our Harriet, and I've got a little rendering of what we thought things she looked like, at age 13, was born. Her given name was Araminta Ross. So when modesty was brought here and purchased by the Patson family, she was pregnant and she eventually bore Harriet Ritt or Harriet Green, old Ritt, when Old Ritt had her children at least, and through tubman, and tubman was the fifth of nine children.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure that the younger brothers got to know their grandmother, but harriet knew her grandmother and her grandmother would tell her that she came here free. This system that you're in is temporary. If you have faith, if she came from either Senegal or Ghana, their connection to their faith was huge, deep, very intense. She would share with Harriet that if you have faith you will find freedom. So Harriet, or Menti, froze up with this idea of freedom, this horrific condition of slavery. She was treated very badly because she was very obstinate. She was always questioning this system of slavery because she is living in Dorchester County, where 50% of the African Americans are free. So imagine working plantations being rented out. That was a big industry here on the Eastern Shore. They would rent their enslaved people out. She is meeting and talking with people that look just like her that are free. She's always questioning this why are you free and I am not? So as a consequence of her questioning her understanding who, she understood, where she, who she was and where she came from, she was constantly beat, you know, as a little girl.
Speaker 1:One of her early jobs, about five years old now. Harriet only grew to be five feet tall as an adult. So she was a tiny, petite little girl. One of her early jobs, about five years old Now, harriet only grew to be five feet tall as an adult. So she was a tiny, petite little girl left largely alone because she was a middle child, so middle children. Growing up. I had to kind of figure out life because I had my older brothers and my older sisters and here I am in the middle and no one's really paying attention to me. So Harriet Tubman spent an awful lot of time alone figuring things out, having her grandmother in her ear and just kind of observing her surroundings. Her father, benjamin Ross, was a boat builder and navigator, so he's in her ear when he could and so she grows up with a whole different way of seeing the world and in her mind, based upon what her grandmother said, she's supposed to be free.
Speaker 1:One of her jobs very early and she was very, very defiant, very obstinate. She's five years old One of her jobs was to go into the icy Blackwater River and check the traps of muskrat. Muskrat was big, they sold the fur. If she would go in and check the trap and there were no muskrat there, and if she did find them there half dead, imagine the trauma of a little five-year-old seeing a half dead big old furry rat with a long tail and sharp teeth. But anyway, if she'd go check the trap and there were no muskrat, she'd be severely beaten. She developed a real resistance to being beaten and it made her very strong and her faith was very strong because her grandmother told her if you believe, if you have faith, if you're connected to this being God, call it what you want up in heaven. If you're obedient there, you will find freedom. So that's how she grew up and that's what made her who she was. She resisted the system of slavery. She wanted to be like the free African Americans that she had come to know, and she just plodded her way till she got there.
Speaker 1:I'm sitting inside of my museum. I had this mural painted in February of this year and it's the Bucktown store. I do walking tours. I've walked the Underground Road. I've walked from Broadus to Philadelphia three times.
Speaker 2:Oh wow.
Speaker 1:I walked from Auburn, new York, to Canada once and then I walked from Charleston into Beaufort once, so I'm kind of covering the path that she took In this Bucktown store. The other thing that really solidifies who she becomes is what happens here in the store. She'd been rented out. She's 13 years old by the time she's 13,. She's seen all the wars of slavery. She's been beaten. She tells Sarah Brathwaite about her body. She's got lashes and marks from being beaten. All the time she sees others being beaten. Brodus was an especially harsh enslaver because of his upbringing. She knows what she's dealing with. She's 13, but probably her maturity level is 30. She goes. She's been rented out. She comes to this Buckhound store. She comes to this Bugtown store. She's coming into the front door. I just love this. This room is amazing. She's coming in the front door.
Speaker 1:You see, samuel, there's a young slave boy, samuel thinking about eight years old. He has left his plantation and he's running down Best Pitch Ferry Road. He runs to the back of the store. Harriet's coming in the front. I'm looking at the back door. He runs in the back and Harriet sees what's happening. This is considered her first act of defiance, so he's being pursued by the overseer named Barnett. Barnett runs in the back door and he calls out to Harriet because he sees her at the front and he says grab him. Harriet doesn't do that. She puts out her hand and pushes Samuel out the door. He picks up a two-pound weight and throws it in the little boy's direction, but it hits Harry in the head instead, cracks her skull. She falls out. Blood streams down her face, soils her garment.
Speaker 1:She's eventually picked up and taken back to the plantation that she had been rented and is allowed to rest for the night. But that morning she's got to get up and work. Blood's still on her face, garments in her hair. She says that the reason that blow didn't kill her she told Sarah Bradford I hadn't killed my hair until I was 18. So she had thick, full hair untamed and she had had it wrapped in cloth made of flaxseed. That was a crop that was grown here. You take the shell of the flaxseed and you can strip it and eventually get thread and then you get this linen. So it was wrapped in linen cloth and that cushioned the blow, but it didn't stop that two-pound weight from cracking her skull.
Speaker 1:Imagine she was a handicapped American who did amazing things. After this hit to her head the cracked skull, she has this frontal lobe damage and eventually has epilepsy, narcolepsy, sleeping disease, call it what you want. But she'd frequently be working in the fields and she'd have these epileptic attacks two, three times a day. The enslavers, and even her fellow african-americans and the people that she worked with, thought she was a little nutsy. She'd go into a catatonic state. They thought it was voodoo or witchcraft. They would just watch do this and then she'd finally regain consciousness.
Speaker 1:But when she did, she began to have these visions. These are the visions that her grandmother told her, visions of freedom. She embraced that and went on to be this amazing woman, the mother of the Underground Railroad. Not only did she get herself to freedom above the Mason-Dixon line, what makes her so amazing is she came back to get other people. So that's our Harriet. The store still exists. It's still out on Bucktown Road. It's been there since 1820. The Meredith family still own the Bucktown store and I delight in taking people there and, as you can see, I'm very animated and I tell this story and people are really pulled into who Harriet Tubman was.
Speaker 2:I think one of the things that made me admire her the most is when she escaped, then decided to come back and run the chances of reliving this to even a worse extent because she was helping others escape. But when I found out that she would pass out, have these fits in the middle of a rescue. They would just wait for her to regain consciousness and they would continue the journey. I would not be nearly that strong as to be like all right, well, we're going to continue this life or death journey where I just passed out for a few minutes, it's remarkable.
Speaker 1:It is remarkable, and imagine how the people following her felt. They thought oh my God, we're in this. What's going on here? What is happening, crazy woman. Now imagine the enslaved people who were already frightened about taking this route, frightened about leaving their plantations and not knowing where they were going. They too had to have an enormous amount of faith, courage, resilience, persistence just to embark upon such a journey At night, in the dark. They always traveled at night. The floor of the forest and the wooded area were covered with sweet gum balls. Imagine having to walk. Do you know what a sweet gum ball is, having to walk on those prickly things? And following this woman who had these bits?
Speaker 2:It's pretty astonishing. Another reason why I admire her is because her resolve to make sure that, no matter what happened, she was going to get them out safely, whether they ended up wanting it or not. Well, and you couldn't turn back.
Speaker 1:Once you decided everyone at risk everything, and this mission was bigger than Harriet and anyone involved. She would tell them I'll kill you, we're in this and we got to keep going. You can't come back. So yeah, pretty incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she is absolutely remarkable. We know that she did all of these tricks to save people. She ended up saving over 70. And did she never lost anyone? She never lost anyone and traveled with babies.
Speaker 1:How did she keep the babies from crying out at night? Because she knew the land. She was such a naturalist, an environmentalist. She knew what to use to make a sedative and put it on the gums of the babies so they would sleep all night long. She never got caught and never lost anyone. Sometimes, every now and again, there's a person born in this life to do incredible things, and she was that person.
Speaker 2:What happens to Harriet after she has completed these rescues? What does the rest of her life look like?
Speaker 1:Oh my God. So you would think, after making 13 trips, so 1850, now, while she's making these trips, this is about 11 years before the Civil War. So there's grumblings all over the North, they're wanting to usher in the Industrial Revolution. The South, no, no. We're making enormous amounts of money we are not going to get rid of.
Speaker 2:Now this thing is working good.
Speaker 1:This relabor. This is working good for us. So 1850, they passed the Fugitive Slave Act. They passed one earlier, like in 1830, but it didn't go over as well. But this one was real because by the time the Civil War broke out, 100,000 men, women and children had found freedom along the Sunday Brown Railroad. So they passed the Fugitive Slave Act and that said that anyone African American, anywhere free or enslaved, could be captured and sold south, because cotton was king and the south was becoming insanely wealthy. I read it was the fourth largest industry in the world. Now she does.
Speaker 1:You know, she comes back and not all of her first time out is all walking, subsequent trips. She had a network of people used wagons, horses, boats and later on, trains. She makes these trips, 13 of them, gets these people out. Her last trip back was to get her parents and they're in Canada. Does she just kind of sit back? I got everybody out, I'm free, all is good. I did my work, I can relax and enjoy. That wasn't part of her DNA. What happens? Oh, abe Lincoln, by this time they've written a lot about Harriet Tubman. There's pictures of her. She is this, you know, bigger than life, human being, and so they figure out that well, we can use this woman.
Speaker 1:The Civil War breaks out in 1861. Let's call Harriet why. She's a spy, she runs clandestine operations, she understands the land, she's a nurse, she can cook, she can do everything that we need in this military operation. So she goes down to Beaufort, south Carolina, and she works with General Montgomery. She helps General Montgomery get 700 enslaved people off those plantations. They go down there, the Union forces go and they burn the plantations and they get 700 people away. But then she is on this gunboat and her job is to take out the Confederate boat, which she does. Where does she get that skill from? That is just plain old courage and cockiness, as far as I'm concerned. She wears that gunboat, takes out the Confederate army and wins the battle of the Tambi River. That's pretty amazing stuff.
Speaker 1:Harriet had the wherewithal to go in because they didn't trust her at first. Who is this woman? What does she think she is coming here? You have to think about the camaraderie, if you will, between free African Americans and those that were enslaved. Not a whole lot of trust pulling and probably no camaraderie actually. So she had to go down and learn their language to get them to trust her and she said you know I'm going to get you out of here. And she did, she did and wins the battle. I mean that's pretty incredible. After all, she went through right. She hit in the head all the lashings, all the beatings, gets people to freedom, goes and fights in a war and wins the battle Pretty incredible.
Speaker 1:And still she doesn't get paid. When I was there I met with some historians and they pointed out a corner to me where she set up a food stand Probably the first food stand, I don't know. She's selling cookies, cakes and pies to raise money for these new families that are now free when the war's over. She's headed back to Canada because she's got to get her family. They're going to move back into the United States. She's on the train. Some Confederate soldiers recognize her, they pick her up and they throw her off a moving train More bodily damage.
Speaker 1:By this time she's in her 40s, early 50s, I think. Can you imagine she gets back to Canada and she can come back into the United States by this time she's regarded, but not highly enough to get paid. She befriends William Seward, the Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln. They give her the money to buy a house in Auburn, new York, which is a second state park to Harriet Tubman. The first one is down here in Church Creek, opened in 2018, and then that state park in Auburn, new York. They renovated the house. I did my walk last year. I look forward to going back to seeing the renovations.
Speaker 1:And so she gets a house and she brings her family back into the United States. Now what does she do there? Now? She lives in New York and Canada longer than she does here. She leaves here when she's 27. So the rest of her life is spent there. When you go to Auburn and St Catharines, they know her history very well. So she gets a house. She's given the money but she insists on repaying it. Even though she never got paid, she insists on repaying it. So she does all kinds of odd things and always helping people. That's how she gets money. But she ends up opening a house in Auburn for the homeless, for the poor, for the children that may not have families, and she takes people in. It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1:Now she marries John Tubman while she's here. John Tubman doesn't want to come. She was born airman to Ross and changes her name to Harriet Tubman. Once she's on the run, she comes back to get her husband, but her husband has remarried. He doesn't want to come with her. So she leaves him behind and decides this mission is bigger than you and I.
Speaker 1:A Civil War soldier, 22 years younger than Harriet, needs shelter. His name is Garrett Davis. She ends up marrying him. She's well into her 50s by now and she marries a man 22 years younger than she is, never has children, adopts an old girl named Gertie, who's 13. History doesn't really follow Gertie, so we're not quite sure what happens. But instead of her deciding I got this house now I don't have to pay the money back, she insisted on repaying the sewers. She spends her whole life in service to other people.
Speaker 1:Now, one other thing worth mentioning Auburn is, I don't know, 50 miles from Seneca Falls, and we know that Seneca Falls is the birthplace of the women's suffrage movement. She befriends Susan B Anthony. They have started this movement, susan B Anthony. They have started this movement. Susan B Anthony hears about her. They form the Negro Women's League.
Speaker 1:The organizations come together and they ask Harriet Tubman if she'll go around the countryside talking about women's right to vote. But Harriet says nope. No, it's not going to be women's right to vote I'm going to be talking about freedom, freedom for everyone. So she goes around the country and they talk about women's suffrage. Both Tubman and Susan B Anthony died before 1920, but their efforts, their work, their commitment to this whole movement of women's freedom and women's rights culminates into the 1920s, and that's when women get their right to vote. So this is the kind of woman that Harriet Tubman was. She believed strongly that no one should be enslaved, that people should be free to live and pursue the kind of lives that God put them on this earth to do, and that was her mantra.
Speaker 2:And that's what she did, and she has a lasting legacy. What else do you guys have that might have the feel of Harriet?
Speaker 1:Well, we've got all kinds of statues and artifacts. We've got shackles. I was presented some slave ledgers back to 1848 of the John Pennington family in Boston, founded in their attic. It's the original ledgers of where he was purchased and Pennington is one of the men that Harriet Tubman rescued. Oh, wow. So I will be putting that in frame. But we just have lots of books. We have exhibits of spoons and forks that were used in slave cabins.
Speaker 1:What we found is that, based on this recent dig in the last couple of years, they found artifacts at Benjamin Ross's cabin. We believe that there was some hierarchy. Benjamin Ross was a very skillful boat builder and a navigator. He was a foreman. He regulated and oversaw how the boats were built. He was known to be able to look at the sweetgum tree and the tulip poplar and determine what part of the tree was best for the ships he built. So in this dig they found spoons and forks. They found knobs to dressers. So we believe that there was some sort of hierarchy among enslaved people where Benjamin Ross and the Ross family might have lived differently. Especially, benjamin Ross treated a little differently. Her mother, old Ritt, was regarded very highly for someone who would never lie, very trusted. So what we have here are pieces that people have found living here In Cambridge. We have generations of families that are still here. The Rosses are still here, the Thompsons are still here, the Patsons are still here. They bring us stuff and we have it in display cases that you could come and see.
Speaker 1:The Benjamin Ross site will be a tourist site once they complete the dig and shore everything up. Part of the land is owned by the state of Maryland. Part is privately owned so we have to work through what is available. There are 45 sites along the Underground Railroad from here to Philadelphia. Associations have been instrumental in restoring these sites. So a lot of history. You can go back in history with the locations of places, with the artifacts and with the descendants. They still have the stories. So this place is so rich with history it gives me goosebumps. I'm from DC. I come here every week to volunteer in this museum. It's just that important and I write grants because this story is an incredible American story that we all need to know.
Speaker 2:Do you have any recommendations for anyone who wants to read more about Harriet?
Speaker 1:So there's a couple. I would certainly recommend Sarah Bradford. She wrote two books Harriet, the Moses of Her People, and there's one other, both on Amazon. Kate Clifford Larson wrote Balfour, the Promised Land. She did a great job, a great chronology of the Tubman story. But the one that I'm reading now is called Nightflyer, by Taya Miles, and Taya goes very deep into how Harriet became who she was based on her faith, into how Harriet became who she was based on her faith, her will and her connection to her culture. It's just amazing that she did so much research to go back to the west coast of Africa and make the connections of how Harriet did, what not just Harriet but those who came here how they survived. I would recommend those books as a good base to start.
Speaker 2:Documentation in general was rather sparse, but in Harriet's case, part of the reason why we know so much about her is someone had actually spoken with her, got her version of events and then wrote it down Absolutely and who.
Speaker 1:Sarah, sarah Bradford. So Sarah Bradford was a woman who an abolitionist, but she started writing books and this is in the later 1800s. You know Harriet, by this time, is free and she tells her what happened. And so the historians that have written books long after that's their Bible, they've got to go to Sarah Bradford because she was there. She was there and then William Still, the father of the Underground Railroad, where, when Harry got to freedom in 1849, she meets William Still. He's in Philadelphia, his mother was born here and she made the decision to leave, go to New Jersey, remarry, and she had William Still. So he's born free, well-educated, a prolific writer. He documents the stories. Once you got to his place, knocked on his door, he wrote the Underground Railroad, and so we have that documentation. But there's so many others, there's so many other stories that we're finding out about and writers, historians are writing about, because it all ties in to that period. It was a magnificent period of human valor. Thank you so much for sharing more of Harriet Tubman.
Speaker 2:She is one of my favorite historical figures and this was really great my motto is find the Harriet in you.
Speaker 1:Take one thing that she did, embrace it, and you will be free.
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