Tag: slave

Better Known For Her Slave Rescues, Harriet Tubman Led Military Raids During The Civil War As Well
Journalism

Better Known For Her Slave Rescues, Harriet Tubman Led Military Raids During The Civil War As Well

Harriet Tubman was barely 5 feet tall and didn’t have a dime to her name. What she did have was a deep faith and powerful passion for justice that was fueled by a network of Black and white abolitionists determined to end slavery in America. “I had reasoned this out in my mind,” Tubman once told an interviewer. “There was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive.” Though Tubman is most famous for her successes along the Underground Railroad, her activities as a Civil War spy are less well known. As a biographer of Tubman, I think this is a shame. Her devotion to America and its promise of freedom endured despite suffering decades of enslavement and second class citizenship. It is only in mod...
Slave Cabin Sleepovers Are Helping Black And White Participants To Create Healing Conversations
LIFESTYLE

Slave Cabin Sleepovers Are Helping Black And White Participants To Create Healing Conversations

By 1860, more than 40,000 plantations in the United States each had 20 or more enslaved Africans. Today, hundreds of those same plantations operate as museums, but only a handful tell the stories of the enslaved who lived, toiled, and died there. Meanwhile, lifestyle magazines tout plantations as a destination—weddings have become the latest trend—emphasizing their idyllic verdant settings and stately architecture. The Whitney Plantation is the only plantation, of the 375 existing locations, expressly designed to center the narrative of slavery, but Black conservationists and historical interpreters such as Joe McGill are collaborating with plantation owners, government agencies, and the public to center the history of enslaved Africans at those historical 46,300 plantations, and broade...