PEOPLE: Black History Month 2023 Celebrates and honors African American historic actions by Black leaders like Harriet Tubman
AGN.News Team
February 3, 2023
WASHINGTON (AGN.News) – Black History Month is an annual observance originating in the United States. In 2023, Black History Month 2023 is celebrated in the United States and Canada in the month of February 2023.
Black History Month 2023 is an annual observance honoring African Americans, their history of accomplishments and achievements in American and Canadian history.
Black History Month began as a way of remembering important individuals and events in the history of Black people of African ancestry and has since evolved into celebrations and ceremonies.
Origin of Black History Month
The precursor to Black History Month was created in 1926 in the United States, when historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History announced the second week of February to be “Negro History Week”.
This week was chosen because it coincided with the birthday of Abraham Lincoln on February 12 and the birthday of Frederick Douglass on February 14.
Both of these men worked tirelessly for African American freedom. Their efforts have resulted in generations of Black families, Black businesses, Black schools, Black educators, and shared prosperity leading to generational wealth in many local communities.
They’re examples of leadership for today’s creative spirit among young and old African Americans alike. They’ve inspired generations of successful Black entrepreneurs.
Black History Month Honors Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman (1822-1913) was an American abolitionist and social activist. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 slaves, including family and friends.
Tubman used the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. During the American Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. In her later years, Tubman was an activist in the movement for women’s suffrage – women’s right to vote.
Tubman suffered physical abuse
Born enslaved in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman was beaten and whipped by her various masters as a child. Early in life, she suffered a traumatic head wound when an irate overseer threw a heavy metal weight intending to hit another slave, but hit her instead.
The injury caused dizziness, pain, and spells of hypersomnia, which occurred throughout her life. After her injury, Tubman began experiencing strange visions and vivid dreams, which she ascribed to premonitions from God. These experiences, combined with her Methodist upbringing, led her to become devoutly religious.
Rescued enslaved African Americans
In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, only to return to Maryland to rescue her family soon after. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of other slaves to freedom.
Traveling by night and in extreme secrecy, Tubman (or “Moses”, as she was called) “never lost a passenger”. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, she helped guide fugitives farther north into British North America (Canada), and helped newly freed slaves find work.
Her exact route is unknown. Tubman made use of the network known as the Underground Railroad. This informal system was composed of free and enslaved Black people, white abolitionists, and other activists.
Most prominent among the people in Maryland at the time were members of the Religious Society of Friends, often called Quakers.
From the location of the Quakers, she probably took a common route for people fleeing slavery – northeast along the Choptank River, through Delaware and then north into Pennsylvania. A journey of nearly 90 miles – by foot – would have taken between five days and three weeks.
Using deception for protection, Tubman had to travel by night, guided by the North Star and trying to avoid slave catchers eager to collect rewards for fugitive slaves.
Years later Tubman recalled the journey through Pennsylvania. Harriet Tubman said when she crossed into Pennsylvania there was a feeling of relief and awe. She recalled the experience years later:
“When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.”
Tubman life and accomplishments
In 1844, Tubman, who was born Araminta Ross, changed her name from Araminta to Harriet soon after her marriage to a free Black man named John Tubman.
Tubman and her brothers, Ben and Henry, escaped from slavery on September 17, 1849. Their master posted a runaway notice in the Cambridge Democrat, offering a reward of up to $100 (equivalent to $3,260 in 2021) each for their capture and return to slavery. This forced them to return to the plantation.
Soon afterward, Tubman escaped again, this time without her brothers. Before leaving she sang a farewell song to hint at her intentions, which she hoped would be understood by Mary, a trusted fellow slave: “I’ll meet you in the morning”, she intoned, “I’m bound for the promised land.”
In early 1859, abolitionist Republican U.S. Senator William H. Seward sold Tubman a small piece of land on the outskirts of Auburn, New York, for US$1,200 (equivalent to $36,190 in 2021).
Harriet Tubman: U.S. Civil War
When the Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than 750 slaves.
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Tubman saw a Union victory as a key step toward the abolition of slavery. So, she joined the Union Army to show her support for the abolition of slavery.
When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Tubman considered it an important step toward the goal of liberating all Black people from slavery. She renewed her support for a defeat of the Confederacy.
In early 1863 she led a band of scouts through the land around Port Royal, an area of marshes and rivers in South Carolina.
Her group, working under the orders of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, mapped the unfamiliar terrain and reconnoitered its inhabitants. She later worked alongside Colonel James Montgomery, and provided him with key intelligence that aided in the capture of Jacksonville, Florida.
Later that year, Tubman became the first woman to lead an armed assault against the Confederacy during the Civil War. When Montgomery and his troops conducted an assault on a collection of plantations along the Combahee River, Tubman served as a key adviser and accompanied the raid as a leader.
On the morning of June 2, 1863, Tubman guided three steamboats around Confederate mines in the waters leading to the shore. Once ashore, the Union troops set fire to the plantations, destroying infrastructure and seizing thousands of dollars worth of food and supplies.
When the steamboats sounded their whistles, slaves throughout the area understood that they were being liberated. Admired for her ability to recruit, Tubman asked the now-freed slaves to join the Union Army. Many accepted the invitation and became Union soldiers.
More than 750 slaves were rescued in the Combahee River Raid. National newspapers heralded Tubman’s “patriotism, sagacity, energy, [and] ability”. Tubman later worked with Colonel Robert Gould Shaw at the assault on Fort Wagner, reportedly serving him his last meal.
Tubman’s courage inspired millions
After the war, she retired to the family home on property she had purchased in 1859. This is the home where she cared for her aging parents. However, she was not through helping America live up to its creed of equality for all.
She was active in the women’s suffrage movement until illness overtook her, and she had to be admitted to a home for elderly African Americans that she had helped to establish years earlier.
Harriet Tubman is ‘An icon of courage and freedom’ as well as an example of what anyone can accomplish when faced with insurmountable odds.
During the course of Tubman’s life she demonstrated courage in the face of vicious racists, slave masters, plantation owners, armed slave catchers, and treacherous people in her struggle for freedom and equality, not just for herself but for fellow enslaved African Americans.
Hundreds of freed slaves benefited from her services to the country she loved, the United States of America. Her courage and devotion is a model for all to follow. Her desire for freedom and liberty inspired her to put her own life on the line to save others.
Tubman faced racial hatred in 1869
During a train ride to New York in 1869, the conductor told her to move from a half-price section into the baggage car. She refused, showing the government-issued papers that entitled her to ride there as a Civil War veteran.
The racist conductor cursed at her and grabbed her, but she resisted and he summoned two other passengers for help. While she clutched at the railing, they muscled her away, breaking her arm in the process. They threw her into the baggage car, causing more injuries.
As these events transpired, other racist white passengers cursed Tubman and shouted for the conductor to kick her off the train. Her act of defiance became a historical symbol, later cited when Rosa Parks refused to move from a bus seat in 1955.
Tubman’s legacy honored by America
Widely known and well-respected while she was alive, Tubman became an American icon in the years after she died. A survey at the end of the 20th century named her as one of the most famous civilians in American history before the Civil War, third only to Betsy Ross and Paul Revere.
The city of Auburn, New York commemorated her life with a plaque on the courthouse.
In 1937 a gravestone for Harriet Tubman was erected by the Empire State Federation of Women’s Clubs; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
The Harriet Tubman Home was abandoned after 1920, but was later renovated by the AME Zion Church and opened as a museum and education center. A Harriet Tubman Memorial Library was opened nearby in 1979.
Tubman herself was designated a National Historic Person after the Historic Sites and Monuments Board recommended it in 2005.
Honor: Harriet Tubman on the $20.00 Bill
In 2013, President Barack Obama used his executive authority to create the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument, consisting of federal lands on Maryland’s Eastern Shore at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge.
In March 2017 the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center was inaugurated in Maryland within Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park.
The act also created the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park in Maryland within the authorized boundary of the national monument, while permitting later additional acquisitions. The Harriet Tubman Museum opened in Cape May, New Jersey in 2020.
On April 20, 2016, then-U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced plans to add a portrait of Tubman to the front of the twenty-dollar bill, moving the portrait of President Andrew Jackson, himself an enslaver of human beings, to the rear of the bill. The effort was paused in 2020.
In 2021, under the Biden administration, the Treasury Department resumed the effort to add Tubman’s portrait to the front of the $20 bill and hoped to expedite the process.
In January 2023, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she looks forward to the project to have Harriet Tubman on the $20.00 bill by 2030.
Harriet Tubman: Women’s right to vote!
In her later years, Tubman worked to promote the cause of women’s suffrage. A white woman once asked Tubman whether she believed women ought to have the vote, and received the reply: “I suffered enough to believe it.”
Harriet Tubman, as an inspirational speaker, began attending meetings of suffragist organizations, and was soon working alongside women such as Susan B. Anthony and Emily Howland.
Harriet Tubman passed away on March 10, 1913, not having seen all women have the right to vote. Her dream of giving women the right to vote did come true with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment (also called Amendment XIX) to the United States Constitution.
It prohibits the United States and its states from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex, in effect recognizing the right of women to a vote.
Harriet Tubman, also called “Moses”, having served with the U.S. Army, lead Union troops in battle against Confederates, rescued enslaved Americans, recruited soldiers, and having given her life in service to the country she loved, was buried with semi-military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York.
Harriet Tubman: An inspiration to all!
She inspired generations of African Americans and other people of color by her courage while struggling for equality and civil rights. She has been praised by leaders across the political spectrum.
Today, during Black history Month, we salute Harriet Tubman for her courage and desire for freedom from oppression. She has become an icon of courage and freedom for everyone.
We celebrate and honor the sacrifices of African Americans whose historic actions lead by Black leaders and figures like Harriet Tubman who gave their all – even their lives – in the struggle for equality, freedom, and liberty.
Abraham Lincoln’s message to all!
As the 16th president of the United States, President Abraham Lincoln, said in his speech at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on the afternoon of November 19, 1863, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated Confederate forces in the Battle of Gettysburg, the Civil War’s deadliest battle:
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure…”
“… The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced…”
“… It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Harriet Tubman was dedicated to the “great task” as she gave “gave the last full measure of devotion” so that all of us can have, as a nation, “a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
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