The "Members Of The Underground Railroad: Harriet Tubman!" Story

Harriet Tubman

It was an ordinary day.  Reading another article telling about an Underground Railroad conductor and hero who has stated more than once that "Running is as brave as fighting."  Her story began in 1822 when she was born Araminta Ross along the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  She lived through and witnessed the violence of slavery thru the selling of her sisters, the brutal beatings of enslaved people and the death and destruction that clung to slavery's cloak.  She married a free man, John Tubman, but that marriage was threatened in 1849 when she learned she would be sold.  She tried to run away with her brothers, but was unsuccessful.   Eventually, she escaped across the border to Pennsylvania.  

Harriet Tubman image.

She found her way to the home of Ezekiel and Eliza Baptiste who were known sympathizers who had a farmhouse in northern York County which is about 25 miles from my hometown of Lancaster.  The couple was one of a very few black families who owned their own farmland.  During the next ten years she traveled back and forth across the border trying to rescue her friends and family.  Her first trip back to Maryland was to save her niece from a slave auction.  Her success during that adventure began a string of successes in leading the enslaved out of bondage.  She used her trusty pistol to help in her rescues.  

US Postage Stamp in her honor.

She often claimed that she had the right to liberty or death; if she couldn't have one she would have the other.  She became known as "the Moses of her people."  Then in 1850 the federal government passed the Fugitive Slave Act which gave slave owners the right to travel to any state in search of their human property.  Harriet knew that the only way to save her friends and family was to make them disappear.  She knew it would take a war to destroy the system of slavery, but until that day she helped to steal away those entrenched in slavery.  She made 12 or 13 trips to Maryland and was said to have rescued about 70 slaves.  

Her image as it will appear on the $20 bill.

She began giving speeches where she  condemned the law of the land and took aim at the system of slavery and the lawmakers who continued to condone it.  She knew that in the absence of justice,  running away is sometimes the only way to save a life.  It has been written that "People other than white men built this country."  Harriet Tubman's image has been chosen to replace President Andrew Jackson on the U.S. $20 bill.  But, recently it was reported that the former slave, abolitionist, "conductor" on the Underground Railroad will not become the face of the $20 bill until President Trump leaves office.  He is not a big fan of previous President Obama's choice to replace Jackson.  Some day "Moses" will get her due!  They can't keep her from it!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.