Last year, T and I travelled to the eastern shore of Maryland and visited the Harriet Tubman historical site, a brand-new National Park site that celebrates the life and works of Tubman, especially her work in the Maryland shore, where she was a conductor on the Underground Railroad. We were inspired because wow, how could you not be, and this past summer we came north, to central upstate New York, where Tubman lived for 50 years after her escape from slavery.
This part of New York is known as the burning region because of the volume of reform movements that were at work here in the early 1800s. From stops on the Underground Railroad to support for abolition and women’s rights, these small towns along the Erie Canal were filled with people who felt inspired to make America a better place. In Auburn, New York, Harriet Tubman had a home where she lived with her parents and brothers (all of whom she helped to escape slavery).
She would later buy more property and use the buildings to run a home for elderly African Americans in need of care.
For years, these properties were maintained by a local AME Zion Church of whom Tubman was a member in her lifetime. In July of 2018, the National Park Service took over the property, with full-time park rangers (including an archeologist and a historian) who will work on the property to uncover the past and tell Tubman’s story, including the years she worked and lived in Auburn as a free woman.
Tubman’s grave is in this town, in a beautiful cemetery that also hosts the final resting place of abolitionist William Seward, who was instrumental in helping Tubman to live in Auburn. In downtown Auburn, close to the cemetery, the National Park Service has just begun construction of a historical center that will be named after Tubman and commemorate the free blacks and abolitionists who were active in this area.
These days, I find myself often in despair about my government and, quite honestly, many of my fellow citizens. Our history is not much of a consolation in these times of frustration. But when we visited this place, and the ranger told the story of Harriet Tubman, we weren’t alone. Tours of the property happen twice a day and on the day we visited, there were more than two dozen eager listeners who spent an hour on a hot day, tromping about the 20 acres that constituted Harriet’s home in freedom. The historian spoke of slavery in honest and unvarnished terms and people listened. We learned about Tubman’s work on the Underground Railroad, her work as a Civil War spy and nurse, her efforts to secure the right to vote for women, her work running a home for the aged, and her seemingly never-ending supply kindness. Harriet Tubman is truly impressive. Her story is amazing and it deserves to be told.
The National Park Service is new to this site, and clearly working carefully to mark the life of this splendid woman. There is a new National Park display in one of the buildings on the site with lots of information about Tubman, well-curated and thoughtful. There are plans to do so much more. It’s a painful history, one so very much in need of being remembered. The knowledge that our nation is doing that work and people support the effort was a powerful reminder that we can be good people. The park ranger told us that when Tubman died, her casket was draped in an American flag at her request. She went to her final resting place claiming citizenship in this nation as her birthright. That fact especially struck me, in this time when I am not very proud of being American. After all she had seen and endured, Tubman embraced being an American. I found that heartening. For the first time in a while, I felt proud to be an American, part of a nation that includes the remarkable Harriet Tubman.
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