Badass Abolitionists

When I was a kid, I had the whole set of ValueTales books - a series that paired up historical figures with a cartoon sidekick and told their life story in a way that emphasized values, like "Determination" or "Respect."

The figure they chose to highlight the value of "Helping" was Harriet Tubman. If you don't already know her story, she was an escaped slave who became a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad. After serving as a soldier, spy, cook, and nurse in the Union Army during the Civil War, she continued to fight for equal rights and for women's suffrage until her death in 1913.

Tubman, c. 1855
(Wikipedia)

Because I knew Harriet's story at an early age, I was proud and excited to learn about my own family's connection to the Underground Railroad - even though Great-Uncle George's farm was nowhere near where the famous "Moses" led her people out of the South.

Of course, I also noticed from an early age how wrong it sounded whenever someone would talk about Abraham Lincoln "giving the slaves their freedom." Nobody gave freedom to Harriet Tubman - she fought for it. As did thousands of others. Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglas - enough amazing people to keep a blog like this going for centuries, if we wanted to tell every individual story.

The truth was that Lincoln himself was a reluctant late-comer when it came to the ending of slavery. And without the decades of hard work and resistance of people like Harriet Tubman, before and after his famous proclamation, who knows how long it would have been perpetuated?


Harriet Tubman is featured on Black History Flashcard #22, from Vol. 2: Women of Urban Intellectuals' series of educational flashcards. You can help support my writing AND the mission to give educators better tools for teaching kids about these important people from our history if you visit Urban Intellectuals and get a set (or four) of flashcards for yourself!

Vol. 2: Women also features Sojourner Truth (Flashcard #47) and 50 other amazing women of color. I'll be featuring more of my personal favorites during the month of February.