Harriet Tubman Birthday: 5 Facts To Celebrate The Famed Abolitionist

Quest For Freedom Pt 1 Harriet Tubman

Every Jan. 29, the United States celebrates the birth of Harriet Tubman, the African-American abolitionist born into slavery who helped guide hundreds of slaves out of the Southto freedom in the North. Born in 1820 as Araminta Harriet Ross, she escaped slavery in 1849 and becamea guide along the Underground Railroad, reportedly making 19 rescue missions.

After serving as a spy for the Union Army during the U.S. Civil war, she died of pneumonia in 1913. On the celebration of her birth, here are a couple of facts you may not have known about the abolitionist leader, compiled from PBS, Mental Floss, the Harriet Tubman Historical Society and History.com.

1) She was nicknamed Moses

While taking slaves to freedom, some called her Moses, in reference to the biblical prophet who led the Israelite slaves out of Egypt. During her trips along the Underground Railroad, she allegedly never lost a single passenger.

2) A high bounty

Even though she lived in the North, Tubman was still a fugitive slave, meaning if she were caught she could have been put back into slavery. A high bounty was placed on her, but she would apparently start her rescues on Saturday so she and the escaped slaves could have the full weekend before newspapers ran the ads for her bounty in the Monday editions.

3) Tubman and the womens rights movement

Tubman not only advocated for the abolition of slavery, but also for womens rights when it was still highly controversial. While she couldnt read, she still gave speeches on her experiences as a woman slave.

Harriet Tubman, conductor of #UndergroundRailroad: I never ran my train off the track & I never lost a passenger. pic.twitter.com/GwRJHDQ1mh

4) She was a spy for the Union

Tubman notoriously didnt have many distinctive features she was short and had several teeth missing which helped her as a spy and a scout for Col. James Montgomery. She passed undetected into enemy territory to collect information, but still had to pay her own way through her time in the war by selling pies and root beer.

5) She had her own way to keep crying children from giving away the escaped slave parties

Trying to travel across enemy territory quietly can be hard enough with adults, but Tubman often had to worry about tired, and worse, crying children. Worried a crying child would give away their location, Tubman would sometimes drug the children with opium, easily found at the time.

Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/harriet-tubman-birthday-5-facts-celebrate-famed-abolitionist-2283040

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Harriet Tubman On the $20 Bill Is Chump Change

North Wind Picture Archives/AP American abolitionist Harriet Tubman (1820 - 1913) escaped slavery and went on to lead the Underground Railroad.

Sierra Mannie is a writer based in Mississippi.

When I read that an appeal for Harriet Tubmans image to grace the front of the U.S. $20 bill would soon land on the Secretary of the Treasurys desk, I was, to say the least, underwhelmed.

Earlier this year the group Women on 20s launched a poll asking who people would rather see on a $20 bill instead of seventh president Andrew Jackson. Harriet Tubman won. As a black woman and a feminist (and as someone who once played Harriet Tubman in her second-grade class play), I am painfully aware of the major impact that representation or a lack thereof has on the reflection of societal progress of underprivileged groups. Recalling the social media whirlpool of anguish after Michelle Obamas jubilant, self-affirming speech of black womanhood at BETs Black Girls Rock event last month cries of reverse racism and even a #metoo hashtag that proclaimed #whitegirlsrock its obvious that America is past-due for getting over its centuries of misogynoir.

But Harriet Tubman on a $20 bill is chump change.

Its not that I dont want to see her on my money, but there is a bitter irony to putting a black woman on a $20 bill when America makes it nearly impossible for black women to see Andrew Jacksons face there in the first place.

Black women from slaves to First Ladies have served and suffered for as long as we have existed in this country, in every imaginable way. But despite the centuries of black female triumph as we toil through merely living in this unfriendly nation, built on our backs, the rest of the world gets to pick and choose whether or not were worthy of acknowledgement. We are either muted, the unseen, or blaring, painful to the senses. And the strident force in blocking us out is pervasive. Black men killed by the police get widespread media attention, for better or worse; we cannot say the same of the very many women brutalized or killed by law enforcement, or of the black trans women murdered at alarming rates. The leech of poverty, existing at the crossroads of capitalism and racism, disproportionately affects women of all races, but especially black people.

All of these small calamities are residual evils of the institution of slavery that Harriet Tubman risked her life, for decades, to try to dismantle. Black women need representation, but Harriet Tubman on a twenty feels like commiseration, a pat-on-the-back apology for being black and thats if she makes it there. If she does, it would always be a reminder (whenever $20 graces my presence, at least) that I deserve so much more justice.

Sierra Mannie is a writer based in Mississippi.

Read next: Dear White Gays: Stop Stealing Black Female Culture.

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Source: http://time.com/3857367/harriet-tubman-20-bill-slavery/

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