Controversy surrounds the placing of monuments dedicated toward Araminta Ross, also known as Harriet Tubman, the conductor of the Underground Railroad. Tubman, who was known to threaten an escaping slave with a bullet if they chose to turn back, was a Maryland native, and 2013 will mark the centennial memorial of her passing.
Representatives of her home state had wished to memorialize Tubman by replacing a statue of the President of the Continental Congress in the U.S. Capitol with a statue of her. Despite their efforts, they lost their fight, but another monument in Cambridge is currently underway and due for completion in March 2013. In addition, Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin offered $7.5 million to establish a national historic park devoted to Harriet Tubman. However, doubt has ensued as to whether or not the bill – which would establish a national park in Auburn holding the Harriet Tubman Home, the Tubman Home for the Aged, the Thompson Memorial AME Zion Church and Tubman’s gravesite at Fort Hill Cemetery – will pass. They would need $21.5 million to complete the project.
Tubman completed her first deed in saving a fellow slave when she was only a pre-teen living in Dorchester County, Maryland. According to historians, Tubman witnessed a slave master inside a store who was preparing to throw a large weight at a young black male slave, who was trying to run. Tubman used her body to block the weight, hitting her own head in the process. She developed narcolepsy from the injury.
Standing at 5-foot, 2-inches tall with a small frame, an adult Harriet Tubman would live to free thousands of slaves from bondage, and marry a man 20 years younger before her death in 1913.
(As found on blackamericaweb.com)
