 Well, I would like to welcome you all and I particularly you can tell I'm very excited that we have Girl Scouts here This is an inauguration for the Center to have our first troop of Girl Scouts and they're from St. Paul's Girl Scout troop number 2158 and 2081 So that's a very great thing and I welcome each of you Particularly and I welcome all of you to the continuing Programming that we're having in place that I've put in place Recognizing the first anniversary of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center from the start I am Elizabeth Sackler and it is my pleasure to be here with you today Beverly Lowry Wrote this wonderful book Harriet Tubman Imagining a life a biography of Harriet Tubman Let me tell you first a little bit and it's only a little bit because Beverly's list of Accomplishments and achievements really are very long But I'd like to tell you that first and then tell you how it is that we are here Together today and then all of us are here also Beverly is professor of creative writing At the MFA program at George Mason University She started there in 1999 I understand and for the last three decades. She has maybe more She's been writing books nonfiction essays and articles and short fiction. She has won in 2007 the Richard Wright Award for literary excellence and she was a Rockefeller fellow and She holds numerous distinguished visiting writer Programs that she's been involved with over the years most recently at the University of Montana, which is 2008 She has been reviewed regularly in the New York Times book review section and That's where I segue and that's where we start to come together I love reading the New York Times book review section actually is Possibly one of the favorite things that I like about the New York Times and When I get it on Saturday mornings So I was going through and reading and there's this review and it's a review of Harriet Tubman imagining a life I thought my god This sounds really Fascinating one of the things that was written very early on in it. It says That this is a quote from that review Harriet Tubman the novelist Beverly Lowry's Contribution is labeled a biography, but subtitled imagining a life and This explains Her decision to emphasize the visual elements of Harriet's story What things look like Places and clothes Faces and plants the skies and to thread the information from all its sources and This really sounds fascinating. I immediately got the book and immediately read the book and part of what I loved so much about it and I hope that you will have an opportunity. They're on sale and they're signed by Beverly down at the bookstore at the gift shop is that that Beverly Imagined possibilities When there was no Factual information about Harriet Tubman She imagined. Well, she might have done this because of this or possibly Because of that or she might have felt a certain way, but then again, she might have felt another way So it takes you and your mind into that time of Harriet Tubman's work her life her struggles and It gives you an opportunity To begin to imagine What it all must have been like and it was really really exciting So I went into the office as soon as I finished it and put in a call to Beverly Lowry I figured out how to find her somehow and called her or emailed her. I don't remember how it all began and Two days later. I received an email from a friend of mine who lives out in New Mexico Who said to me? I have a friend by the name of Beverly Lowry Who has just written a book and she's going to be here when you are out here in New Mexico? And I thought maybe you would like to meet her and I said well funny thing I've already been in touch with her and I would love for her to come and speak at the forum and that was last summer and we were both of us Beverly and I out in Santa Fe together and At the same time and had lunch and it was wonderful and it was from that auspicious Moment, I think that I said well, let's let's have you come here Please and speak at the center and I just want to show you what my book looked like by the time I was finished reading it That's how much there is in here That for me has informed some of my thinking some writing actually that I've done and The way in which I've used it sort of as an ongoing reference And I think no matter what age you are and of course I was saying that because we have now our wonderful Girl Scouts here That I think there's something in this book for everybody And so please help me and join me in giving a warm welcome to wonderful Beverly Larry, thank you so much Elizabeth. We did have a wonderful lunch But Elizabeth went through the book with all those post-its asking me about different things now on page something that on page Some so I had to interrupt my eating the whole time to Answer her questions. I'm thrilled to have what is your troop member? All right, I'm thrilled to have you here I don't believe I've ever spoken to Girl Scouts before and I'm going to Change what I'm going how I'm going to speak today because of you because I don't want you to get uninterested I Wanted to address two questions one was who was Harriet Tubman and Who people think she is and and what she did that maybe people don't have as much knowledge of and the other was the question? I'm always asked which is why Harriet Tubman. Why did I write about her? I was going to talk about that first, but I'm not I'm going to talk about I want to read a little bit from the book that Maybe you all will be interested in and everybody will be interested in but And talk about who she was When I address young people I always ask that question. Do you know who Harriet Tubman was? anybody any of Can you tell me okay the underground railroad all right. Thank you. You're exactly right I've asked that question many many times of many groups of young people up Into college and the answer is always the same as the underground railroad often. It's just that underground railroad It's sort of like George Washington Founding father Ben Frank Benjamin Franklin the kite. It's how she's known I wanted to talk a little bit about that part of her life and Then talk about the the part of her life that's less well known is her participation in the Civil War as the first woman to go into a an armed campaign as a Leader of that campaign and up until not many years ago. She was the only one in a declared war She was the only woman to have done that. I don't know if that's still true or not since we've had a few other Wars and battles to think about but So I'll but in honor of my Audience here. I want to read a little bit from the part of her life that we know More about it's before the underground railroad there though She was enslaved in Maryland, which means she was property of some people and She determined that she was going to get away Before she was sold the way her sisters had been and when the person was sold They were never seen again for the most part. They just were they vanished and She did not want that to happen to her She felt like it would and she was probably right her brothers were afraid her whole family was afraid she took care of her whole family and She decided that if the brothers wouldn't go they would stay but she was going and so she went in The late afternoon as the Sun was setting and I'm going to read a little bit of what it was like when she went She could not read or write and There were no signs. There were no there was no roads. There were paths when there was a creek and a river and She had no other information to go on She had a letter that somebody had given her which she couldn't read But she could give it to somebody in a safe house where people would help her and they would Lead her to the next place. That's all she had. So I'm going to read a little bit of that night The moon tube nights pass full alone Harriet walks into the unknowable dark Barefoot and her slave dress heading perhaps along Marsh Creek The Quakers have given black people land for their own church and cemetery up by Preston the marshy Creek Methodist She may head there or pass on by not wanting to lose time so early in the journey Keeping to the wetlands allowing the streams and creeks that run beside the chop tank river to guide her She may well have her sights set on a spot near Greensboro where the river narrows enough that it can be crossed on foot at the red bridge Harriet keeps her mind on her business leaving fantasy and fear to others She has memorized Hannah Leviton Hannah Leviton was a Quaker woman who gave her the piece of paper She has to take her on She's memorized the instructions and may repeat them with every step to make sure she stays on the right path She checks the chop tank keeping it on her left to the west And she has her piece of paper with the names on it to give to other people who can read She knows the importance of a walking stick to poke along the ground in front of her helping her to feel out what she can't see Rabbit holes sinkholes logs tree roads roots animal traps set by farmers Nobody walks into alien territory without the stick The first night she makes as many miles as she can so that by the time she's discovered missing She'll be far from poplar neck where she lives and even farther from Bucktown by midnight. She's still making her way September 17th the night she left becomes the 18th exactly one year prior to the passage of the fugitive slave act Next year when other members of her family make their own flight to freedom Everything will be different everything Harriet may fall asleep in the woods in the early morning hours of the first night waiting until late afternoon to approach the first safe house When a woman comes to the door she displays the paper given to her by Hannah Leverton The woman responds by telling Harriet to get a broom and sweep the yard People in the south often sweep their yards when there isn't much grass and they want the dirt neatly packed and smooth But Harriet doesn't care for the idea of stopping Nonetheless, she does she's as she is asked Figuring that the request is probably for the purpose of camouflage So that a passer-by will assume the woman has hired her out and will not suspect her as a runaway That evening the woman's husband comes in from farming. He loads up his wagon and after nightfall Helps Harriet in and then thoroughly covers her up. She crouches down remains quiet They bump along Watching out for patrollers and slave catchers the farmer drives her to the outskirts of the next town where she gets out Keeping to the shadows speaking and whispers. He advises her where to go and how to find the next station in This manner she makes her way through Maryland She follows the waterways in place of roads through thickets and snake country Sleeping within the cradle of tree roots and in homemade caves hiding in dense clinging foliage Marking the navigable creeks in her memory as she goes In Maryland, she will say turning to matter for the Brooks run north Steadily she follows their lead. There is no organized system of assistance for runaway slaves at this time Beyond the loosely established web of abolitionists Quakers some Methodists who will pass people from one meeting house or home to the next Careful to avoid the areas where slave catchers and vigilantes hide out toward Delaware Camden Dover Wilmington she repeats the names to herself in the sequence. She's been given They are not states or towns to her only places to get through and go from In his autobiography my bondage and my freedom Frederick Douglass wrote of his own dream of escape And this is a quote. We had heard of Canada the real Canaan of the American bondsman Simply as a country to which the wild goose and the swan repaired at the end of winter But not as the home of man. I knew something of theology, but nothing of geography I really did not know at that time that there was a state of New York or a state of Massachusetts There's several routes through Maryland that Harriet might have taken perhaps moving quickly into Delaware following the river to its Headwaters near Camden where there were active African American abolitionists or she may have traveled on farther north in Maryland closer to Wilmington Either way this last leg was perhaps the most dangerous and her friends must have taken special care to get her through it There were bands of slave catchers who roamed the countryside there and with fewer areas of wetlands The bounty hunters had a better chance of spying a runaway slave making her way through the territory Although what would later be called the Underground Railroad had not yet been organized the people willing to assist runaways Were it dedicated and knowledgeable With their help Harriet made her way through Delaware Pennsylvania is the goal Whatever Pennsylvania may be Philadelphia When she arrives at the state line someone is with her who points it out to her and says look you've made it Walk over that line and you're free. She steps across Everything becomes new Even the light seems to change she looks down at her hands to make sure she's the same person When she looks up she sees the sun coming over the fields and through the trees and imagines the light as a glory over everything as if her farewell songs have come true And she's arrived at the promised land. I felt like she will tell Sarah Bradford in 1868 I was in heaven But her feelings of euphoria quickly dissipate I'd crossed the line she'll tell Bradford I was free, but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom I was a stranger in a strange land There's no one to talk to no one to tell no one knows where she is or what she's feeling or how far she's come All the way from the frolic in the poplar neck chicken with Mary through the swamps and woodlands to hear No one here knows what life was like in Bucktown She compares the situation to that of a man who was sent to prison for 25 years who long for home the whole time He was there only to return to find that his house has been pulled down and a new one put up in its place His family and friends having gone nobody knows where no one is there to take him by the hand No one to welcome him home as She heads toward Philadelphia. She settles her mind with a moral decision She has no right to individual freedom while others Those who are a part of her and whose presence her life belongs are bound Since she is free so should her family be she is the first daughter after all the one who has come out Successfully the one who hears the voices and has the insight Having been chosen. She believes she has no right to do anything but a bay no choice But to use her gifts to take on responsibility for others She makes a new resolve Once she's made a home in the north with God's help. She'll bring her family there Before crossing the bridge into Philadelphia. She prays. I said to the Lord I'm gonna hold steady on you and I know you'll see me through She's the same person but with a new resolve and a new name from now on. She's Harriet Tubman She crosses the Delaware Holding steady. We follow her I Want to say, you know, I think that the first question anybody might ask about this. How did I know that? I mean, I did try to I wanted to write a life of Harriet Tubman in scenes Without much analysis with as little analysis as I felt I could That the book would stand up without And but these everything in here, I mean, you'll notice I said it's possible. She did this this possible Nobody knows the thing about Harriet is and I've been living it with her for so long Forgive me if I call her by her first name. It's very hard to think of a heart is Ms. Tubman. I Think for practically anybody That whatever She did she did alone and So all the stories that people say about how she went what route she took are surmises or They come from her through somebody else. She did not read or write none of this is written down by her The person as I mentioned in here She told the story her first biographer was named Sarah Bradford. This was in 1868 when Harriet had a home with her family in Auburn, New York Which is in central New York on the Finger Lakes if any of you all are familiar with that part of the state and So the woman who took down everything that you read all the quotes that where she says I felt like I was in heaven She said that to Sarah Bradford or Sarah Bradford told us she said that the difficulty in writing the biography of someone who Could not read or write is that you were always dependent dependent upon somebody else's Version of what happened somebody else's language somebody else's interpretation and also on oral history, which does change throughout the Centuries the years the months and and so a biography of somebody who was enslaved who doesn't read or write of Necessity is based on some speculation and On the imagination I for one had no problem with that I think history is written from a point of view by a particular person in a particular time and To just pile up the facts is not to write a book. It's simply to pile up the facts But I was try I tried to be careful to back up anything I said that wasn't there I've made up no quotes and I made up nothing But I did not always know obviously what she did or what she was thinking and I tried always to Let the reader know that that's what I was doing and in the beginning I said that that's what I'll be doing so that you the reader would be prepared for that I think now I'll also just do another little reading and then I'll talk about the rest of what I wanted to talk about when the war came when in 1861 the Underground Railroad Disbanded the area in which it traveled it was not a real train I'm sure you all know that But it was a method of travel of transport from the south to Philadelphia across New York State This is Harriet's route. There were others coming up through Ohio and other parts of the country to Canada After the fugitive slave law was passed. They could not just go to New York. They went all the way to Canada But Harriet I mean the thing we have to remember about Harriet is she was just so dogged in her Determination to do what she could one person to help her people It is a great lesson for us all to sit around the thing. Oh, well, there's nothing to do. Nothing will help What can I do? She just this was gone. There's the Underground Railroad was disbanded She could not go down into Maryland because the war was there So what could she do? The Union troops went down to South Carolina to the Hilton head and the islands down there and Made their way and took over the forts there and she managed pretty Pretty soon after that to get down to South Carolina Where she this is where she led the armed campaign And but she said this is her quote as quoted in a book by an abolitionist The good Lord has come down to deliver my people and I must go to help them So she found her way down there. She thought she was going to teach at first she cooked and She did teach people down there how to Operate the freed slaves and and One of the interesting parts of her life down there is she had to have a Soldier she had to have a soldier who was open in his mind enough to know what she could offer Because the Union of Army was all together white at that point. They were Just getting into using African-American men as soldiers, but no women and She was not us in the army. She was not a real soldier She was a warrior. I think I was a warrior, but not a soldier and so while a lot of the Union Army officers admired her and acknowledged what she had done. They did not put her On a ship or make use of her as a spy or As a soldier until most of them were from the east from Harvard West Point a Soldier named James Montgomery came James Montgomery was from Kansas. He was from the West and this is a lot about Class and education as much as anything a disciple of John Brown and He did not believe in the etiquette of combat He believed man you burn them down if you find them you kill them all burn them down and Free the good people and The Harvard guys did not appreciate his method of warfare just like they did not appreciate John Brown's method of warfare but it took somebody like that to see Harriet Tubman know what she had done and she had a list of Of recommendations by people who knew what she had done bringing her people out of slavery and he Took her on and she and a friend of hers Walter Platton who knew the rivers were a part of this campaign They could tell him first of all how to get through the river to title rivers. So it's very difficult and And the people trusted her so that when they arrived there She could all these people who were my emancipation had already been declared But this is a very remote area of South Carolina and the people were still enslaved. So this is a little bit from That part of it The river is cause it's felt like come to heat but they in South Carolina. They call it this come be so I'm gonna call it the come be By the end of May plans are set for a raid up to come be the object of which is to destroy rebel lines of Communication and gather recruits from among the laborers and see they are laborers now. They aren't enslaved anymore But they have not received the word they have been Isolated and they're in a very remote part of the state and they are doing rice farming They have no idea that Lincoln has declared emancipation They've sent word to the bonded laborers to listen for a signal when they hear it there to drop everything in run Montgomery has raised five companies a portion of the third regiment Rhode Island heavy artillery will participate For Harriet the raid will offer her the first opportunity She has to go head-to-head with a lifelong enemy and using skill Deliberation and force to wait to take away from them. What never was theirs to begin with? The good Lord she believes has come to deliver her people and she is taking her place in the lead gunboat of the expedition to help out Navigating a river like the come be requires patience if not a tolerance for pure tedium and because smoke is visible for miles steam-driven Expedition expeditions begin undercover of darkness Usually at high tide and under a full moon and ended the enemy's doorstep at daybreak Before he is fully awakened Harriet's mission embarks on the night of a new moon the sky dark but for stars Clearly James Montgomery is depending on plowedness expertise to navigate the boat safely up river even in pure darkness The come be is narrow shallow winding and muddy with ridges of sand that shift with the tides Every nuance of its particular personality must be taken into account secretly Silently and with all confidence Under such circumstances the military commander waits and watches yielding the to the knowledge of his scouts on the night of June 1st 1863 a Monday Harriet and Walter step into the lead gunboat the John Adams a Converted old East Boston double-ender ferry boat the John Adams while unfit to foresee service is small dependable agile and strong Perfect for river work, especially on a river that twists and turns She's seen such duty before Okay, let's skip over James Montgomery joins Harriet and Walter on the lead ship Two other vessels follow the Harriet a weed and the Sentinel the troops load on 9 p.m. The boats carrying 300 soldiers soldiers slide into the river Under plowedness guidance they head north along the banks of ladies Island then angle West into St. Helena Sound where helped by the incoming tide they moved toward the mouth of the river Harriet was the only woman in the expedition and it is a tribute to the fierce independence of spirit exhibited by both David Hunter who is the general at the young in South Carolina and Montgomery that they have insisted not just on making use of her expertise But in having her board as well on board No other woman will plan and lead an armed expedition during the entire civil war Few women have done so in US military history a woman a black woman a former slave. She is in charge She is general Tubman On the morning of June 2nd at about 2 30 a.m. The boats reached the mouth of the Cumbie and there Successfully crossed the bar and move into the river in the south June brings hot nights and abundance of mosquitoes Muddy darkness alleviated somewhat by the amber flicker of fireflies Fireflies frogs gulp and yell cricket sing a sharp noise like a ringing in the ears Fish jump and flop an occasional dog bays For the sake of secrecy Montgomery orders the steam engines cut as low as possible Riding the tide to hush their movements when they get closer to the rice fields They can hear the burble of the bobble inks called rice birds who lurk and wait for early fall When they will fatten themselves before the harvest By dawn the Adams and the Harriet have reached their first destination about 20 miles up river They drop anchor on the Colleton County side of the Cumbie. The Sun is rising over the flat fields red and slow Fog rolls across the land having just finished their breakfast the laborers have taken up their hose and are moving into the fields At first light Montgomery orders a steady pipe of the steam whistle and Simultaneously sends troops and rowboats to the bank and into the fields The people was all a hoeing an old man named minus Hamilton will remember They was a hoeing in the field when the gunboats came And when the fog rolls off and the Sun comes through the workers can see the boats and the black men in blue uniforms Rising from the river armed and standing upright with their heads up and they drop their tools and run From the rebels there's no response after sending several false reports of approaching troops Pickets have been warned against making precipitous alerts and so instead of firing off warning signals They send messages to notify the planters and drivers Negro troops they report are approaching In 1905 remembering the raid Harriet will break into laughter. I never seen such a site Some was getting their breakfast just taking their pots of rice off the fire And they put a cloth on top of their heads and set that on rice is smoking Young one hanging on behind one hand around the mother's forehead to hold on the other digging in the rice pot Eating with all his might and she laughs again remembering women holding tied up white blankets on their heads with their things done up Any woman who didn't have a pot of rice had a child two in her arms are holding on to her dress Some were carrying two children sometimes twins one in each hip one hanging on her neck and the other at her forehead Some had pigs in bags thrown over their shoulders Some carried flapping chickens tied by the legs the pigs squealing the chickens squawking all running running running to the boat By now overseers slave drivers and plantation owners have streamed out into the fields to threaten the escaping workers Brandishing whips and guns to creed death to any man a woman who disobeys orders and doesn't follow them back toward the woods Some called to the fleeing workers to run and hide saying Yankees are going to sell them to Cuba Nobody pays them any mind every man and woman in the field heads straight to the boat Weeks afterward minus Hamilton describing the morning to Thomas Wentworth Higginson says While this master was shouting run to the wood Yankee come see you to Cuba He went to the boat with his wife. He wearing only a shirt and pantaloons. She was only the frock and curches She had on they left their blankets tied up on the bank and ran toward the black soldiers who were so presumptuous They came right ashore and held up their heads When Higginson asked Hamilton his age. He says he's 88 My old master keeps all the ages in a big book and when we come to the age of sense we mark them down every year so we know When Higginson asked Hamilton if he thinks he's too old to have come away Hamilton thinks Higginson must be joking too old for calm Never too old for leave the land of bondage. I old to give a thousand thanks every day so That that was the picture of what happened the boats became so crowded that they began to sink and James Montgomery asked Harriet to sing a song that would sort of calm the people because they were panicked for good reason because the slave owners were just behind them the plantation owners and Would come and hurt them torture them Capture them and take them back But they were the Union troops were in charge and they had to calm the fleeing workers So that they wouldn't sink the boat and they could wait for the next boat to come and take them So it was Harriet who sang the song. There's a famous picture which is in the book a drawing That was in the Harper's magazine of the time of the boat landing and all the people the rice workers coming down from the fields onto the boat and when they got back to To shore There was a big meeting of people and apparently according to Wisconsin newspaper Harriet spoke. She is not named but it is she's called a former slave woman who Was the head the captain of the expedition she's called and that's the first time After that that her actual name is used in print before that She's not been known except as a sort of legendary figure of Moses who leads people to the promised land Which is across the Mason-Dixon line I'd like to talk a little bit and about why I wrote this book how I came to write it and And What it meant to me to write it. It's it's a question. I'm often asked and The somebody I worked with them setting up this event said it was the first question She would like me to answer or to Look at and so I would like to do that I Write the book I wrote before this one was also a non-fiction book. It was about Madame CJ Walker There's also an African-American woman who lived from I see some nods 1867 to 1919 and so I had done a lot of her search on American history of that period and the period before her birth during slavery and in the Civil War and I was Very very moved and interested in the abolitionist moved by and interested in the abolitionist period of American history which is pretty incredible and It first of all there was that second of all To go back even farther. I grew up in a town in which I was the minority race We were I grew up in Greenville, Mississippi which at that time was about 40 percent white and 60 percent black and the 40 percent included we had a very large Asian population Chinese and a Substantial population from the Middle East as well and so white included that so the the town was overwhelmingly African-American. I have been thinking about race My whole life, it's always been a part of my life and Questions about why things were they were the way they were have always puzzled me and so it's It's not something I came to 10 years ago or 15 years ago when I began writing the Madame Walker book It was an opportunity to explore the questions. I've had my whole life and and also to find out how in the world somebody could do what Madame Walker Could do to come out of poverty. She came out of the sharecropper washer woman life. She came out of to become a Millionaire and a woman of great style and substance and how Harriet Tubman This was a small woman Who was unlearned unschooled? She had maybe some of you know She was hit by a flying weight That was thrown at somebody else when she was about 12 or 13 and hit her in the forehead and after that she had fits of narcolepsy So you think about somebody making her way through slave country with patrollers and Slave catchers and vigilantes and price on her head And she falls asleep from time to time and this is attested to throughout her life People describe how she would not off in the middle of a sentence and stay off for maybe 10 seconds Maybe 20 seconds maybe 30 come back and finish her sentence There are people who believe she had temporal lobe epilepsy which sometimes comes from a knock in the head and often when people have that they begin to To have visions and sometimes they are Visions that come true. They are not their visions of the future and that's it seems that that's what happened with Harriet After she got the blow she began to she said the Lord gave them to her and maybe the Lord did I don't know how she could see what she could see but she never lost She said a passenger on her underground railroad No one ever died. No one was caught And there are many times when and then she's not the only one to Testify to this when she would come to a particular place in the road they always went and something would tell her don't go that way go the other way and It was a correct Advice because the patrollers were there or the slave catchers were there so However, she got the information. She got it. So I'm looking at I was asked if I wanted to write this book about Harriet Tubman and all of these difficulties were both Challenging they were daunting and they were very inviting Because to people talk a lot about me why Harriet Tubman? Why madam Walker? Why write a book about I mean It's a book about cod. It's a book about corn. You know why? Subject matter is one thing, but our interest in writers goes beyond that the purest matter of the subject Into a sense of wonder. What is this about? Why is this? What happened to you? How could she do that? Why did she do that? I wrote a book about a murderer who Acknowledged that she was a murderer and told me and told a jury exactly how she committed to murders and My question was and and yet she was a loving person And my question that book was not What was it like to kill somebody? It was not a true crime book. It was not about murder It was about how these extremes of what I felt was good and what seemed to be evil in These murders that she commit could commit did commit could exist in the same Heart soul and life that was what I wanted to find out and in this book I wanted to know what How Harriet Tubman could do what she could do that was That was one thing And the other thing was to go back there to To have an opportunity to write about a true American hero These opportunities do not come along often a real hero an unadulterated hero There's nothing about her that you can say well, yes, but this yes, but she was on the wrong side of that No, she was she is our hero and I thought why would I turn down this opportunity? Because it will never come again. I'm sure and It is not the daunting part is not what I should pay attention to I Should pay attention to the fact that I feel privileged and honored to be allowed this opportunity So those were a couple of things that went and then the final thing I think was a quote and Frederick Douglass I quoted earlier I had read the autobiographies of Frederick Douglass and any of you who haven't I urge you to they're just and wonderful and When Sarah Bradford published her first bar about a biography She asked some people to send in letters Devalidate that Harriet Tubman had actually done what she said she'd done so that people wouldn't just say Oh, it's all just a story. She didn't really do that How could one woman do that and one of the people she asked was Frederick Douglass and I'm going to read you part of the letter and this I thought man Frederick Douglass can write this. I'm on this train and He wrote it to her dear Harriet I'm glad to know that the story of your eventful life has been written by a kind lady and That the same is so soon to be published you ask for what you do not need when you call upon me for a word of commendation I need such words from you far more than you can need them from me Especially where your superior labors and devotion to the cause of the lately enslaved of our land are known as I know them The difference between us is very marked Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public And I've received much encouragement at every step of the way You on the other hand have labored in a private way. I have wrought in the day you in the night I have had the applause of the crowd and the satisfaction that comes of being approved by the multitude While the most that you have done has been witnessed by a few trembling scarred and foot sore bond bondsmen and women whom you have let out of the house of bondage and whose heartfelt God bless you has been your reward The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witness of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism Accepting John Brown of sacred memory. I know of no one who has willingly encountered more Perils and hardships to serve our enslaved enslaved people than you have Much that you have done would seem improbable to those who do not know you as I know you It is to me a great pleasure and a great privilege to bear testimony to your character and your works and Decide of those whom you to whom you may come that I regard you in every way Truthful and trustworthy your friend Frederick Douglas. So I thought okay That'll do. I'm I'm in I want to give this ago and then what I had found out from working on the Walker book was in order to research People who were enslaved you have to go to courthouse records of white people who were slave owners because Enslaved people were not listed as people they now were not considered people and so to get any kind of court records any kind of assessment records any kind of audits or Taxes tax records you have to go to courthouses and look for The names of the white people who were owners in that same area. That's where I started and I Harriet was from the eastern shore of Maryland and I went to that town and spent a lot of time in the courthouse there and Annapolis in the archives where a lot of papers are there and If you read the book, you'll see there's I have included in here a lot of Documents little snippets of a document that I think are Importance, they're copied and the publisher work very hard to get these in there because they're very very hard to read and hard to Make legible some of them aren't exactly legible, but they show you that The the document exists If you want to go look for them you too could go look at that Document one of the most important one for instance was there's always been a lot of controversy about when Harriet Tubman's exact birth date and place are and There is a Ledger that Her I have to use the term owner because even though I hate to because I'm as I point out in here No one owns somebody else, but that's how they were thought of then and that's how they thought of themselves And that's how the enslaved people regarding them But her owner was a minor his stepfather kept a ledger Expenses that he accrued in in taking care of the enslaved people who belong to his stepson among the Lists of expenses was a charge by a midlife who gave aid in the birth of a child to a woman named Ritt Harriet Tubman's mother's name was Harriet and she was called Ritt or Riddia and The child who was born to Ritt at that time was Harriet And there's just no if you know I can't go into the how we know who which child was born in which I order But because he kept that ledger You can look at that date and see when at least when the midwife was paid That maybe she came a week before that maybe two weeks of that but in that season in 1822 In that county Was born the child called Aramanta Ross who became Harriet Tubman and so we put that document in the book a An image of it so that and again, it's very hard to read But it's transcribed below and you can actually so you see the handwriting when I wanted John Brown wrote a letter after he met Harriet Tubman he wrote a letter To his son John Brown, Jr. And said I have just met the most of a man and her name is Harriet Tubman and It's in his hand and It's also very hard to read and we looked at it and so we can't really read it And I said that's all right It's John Brown's handwriting and if it's translated or transcribed below You know if you if you study it or use a magnifying glass you can read it well enough So I'm gonna I'm gonna stop there and I did want to point out one thing here I don't know if any of you all And this is about the writing of history if you all noted the piece in the New Yorker of not this week but last by Jill LePore and It's it has to do with the recent So-called memoirs that were made up That's why she wrote it, but it's not specifically about that It's about the difference between history and fiction and the history of history and the history of the writing of fiction and how until the 19th century People didn't think that a list of facts was history now I got flack from historians about this book and biographers saying what she doesn't know that why does she is in your her imagination? Which I mean I don't get it. I don't know how you write history We write it from where we are now from what we know now. I write it as me If you wrote this book you would write a different book There's something like 19 biographies of Benjamin Franklin now. Those aren't just a litany of He was born he lived, you know, he flew the kite. He died. They each have a point of view But this is what these are mostly quotes from Otherwise, but she hears a here a couple of quotes This is from the English writer William Godwin In an essay called of history and romance which he wrote in 1797 There is not and never can be any such thing as true history Godwin insisted Nothing is more uncertain more contradictory more unsatisfactory than the evidence of facts Every history is incomplete. This is still before every historian has a point of view Every historian relies on what is unreliable Documents written by people who are not under oath and cannot be cross-examined That is to say even the best historian has a good deal in common with Jane Austen's book Called partial prejudice and ignorant historian Before his imperfect source sources the historian is powerless and this is Jane Austen He must take what they choose to tell the broken fragments and the scattered ruins of evidence He could decide merely to reproduce his sources to offer a list of facts But this is in reality. No history He that knows only on what day the Bastille was taken and on what spot Louie the 16th perished knows nothing And this is from Tula for History concerns facts But because they have to be arranged and explained the historian is a dealer not in certainties But probabilities and is therefore a room answer So you can you know you can chew on that I'm happy to answer any questions any of you have Yes Right You know I don't know where Mason Mason and Dixon were people who measured didn't they Yeah Yeah Right the high River where she was going from Maryland up to Pennsylvania it was They are at the Pennsylvania line And that's pretty much how it seems she always went there some Questions of the if she went some other way from time to time How many people that she brought out is a question that people Have many many Opinions on 300 is the magic number It seems from all the evidence There probably weren't 300 but how many there were and how many she helped Which she didn't actually go down and get is completely unknown There could be hundreds of people because she navigated she navigated her niece and her niece's husband and their two children up The Chesapeake to Baltimore and then out without going down there So she was a source of information for many many people how many she actually Took with her is a figure that people I I didn't get into it because my you know my sense of it was if you get up of enslavement and you go back once I Worrying about one person or no people I mean what if you went back and everybody said no no no I'm too scared You still went back and so that to me is an act of heroism. I you know I When we read these things we wonder what I have done it and you know We like to think we might have but it's it's hard to say because it was it was a terrifying things to do I She went back by herself, but other people did help other people but now with her she was she operated alone and You know, it's kind of understandable because she knew What the dangers were she knew where the difficult places were she trusted her instincts? And Also, she was very tough on the people she told them if you start to go back But she had a gun with her she never killed anybody, but she said she would kill them because anybody who was too We to go on would go back and say, you know, they're up there by the the chess piece, you know And she knew that she would hold to that line if you were late She went I mean her brothers were late one time she went So she kept she ran a tight Ship or railroad That's right And this The surveyors Right But you know what I never in all the research I did I never heard one abolitionists are one person involved at the Underground Rail would call it the Mason vixen line Now it was always this river or that river that you had to cross it didn't have anything to do with somebody's Line, I think today is the first time I've ever used the words Okay She never learned to read or write and she was Some a woman in Massachusetts Attempted to teach her but this is way late in her life she was probably in her 40s by then and It just what Franklin Sanborn wrote this and said she's not succeeding or it's not it's not happening There are a few reasons that might You might think about one is the damage to her head second is it's hard to learn to read when you that all Third is that she didn't She trusted what she had she trusted her voices and she said she never had to think about train schedules She just went and sat at the train. I mean that was her life and that's how she operated And so maybe she felt like just the same way she Went alone That it would interfere, you know that she wouldn't then have her voices. I this is I'm just speculating here Yeah, that's what I'm saying that her intuition might be affected by that and she wanted to She'd done some powerful things and she didn't want it interfered with but you know some kind of Different way of operating than she already had what was the other day absolutely Harriet Tubman use quilt She did say that she had made a quilt that she gave to a white lady The before she left right before she left and undoubtedly that was how Leverton the Quaker lady who helped her She could not this just as you cited She could not give it to anybody in her family because that would mean they knew she was leaving and if they knew Then they they would have to say these were and her father was a truth teller and he never wanted to know when his sons or anybody was leaving because when the Plantation owner came and said have you seen your son? He could say no, and he wasn't lying So she could not give it to her family. She was not a seamstress, so it's sort of It's sort of funny to imagine her. She was real outdoor person who liked to you know Chop and hoe and left and she was really strong sitting making a quilt, but maybe she did That's all right They may not I for you, and we turned back to the slave owners. And many people were hanged close along the way. And the slave, and because it's the enlightenment that moved, our people were not allowed to read or write, and people would be killed if they started our people to read or write. So this was never just like jumps. Jumps were a form of communication. And that's what the folks were a form of communication. And now in such a highly organized and priceless form, the artists we've been, we don't use for them kids anymore. You use them to hang on the floor. Oh. Oh. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Everybody, what about the songs? We mentioned that in the past. And the use of songs to relay information. Oh, yeah. You also mentioned that. Oh, yeah. I mean, she had songs that said, don't come. It's dangerous now. She said, and when she sang, go down Moses was the plantation owners bad, the singing of go down Moses. But she was known as Moses because of Moses leading his people across the Red Sea. And she would sing that, and they would know that Moses was there. There were other songs that says, let's go, time to go. And this was a way of communicating. She'd go out in the woods. She never went to people's houses. Word would pass, Moses is coming, Moses is coming. And one man came to her father once, to Harriet's father, and said, tell me when Moses is going to be here next. And she would go out in the woods and sing, which meant, whoever wants to come, come on. And they would hear it. And word would have been sent around ahead of time saying, she's coming to sing, she's coming to sing. And they would gather. But it was all, I mean, as the lady says, it was against the law to learn to read and write. But just oppressed people learned how their oppressors operate. And they know how to work that way of operating. They know the clues better than the people do know of themselves. They pay attention, and they find their own ways of communication. Drums are a way of communicating musical instruments, singing, and all that. How could she talk? Oh, man, she could talk. You can talk. She just couldn't. And the way she talked was, this is why oral history is so important, because people told her stories. And people told her mother's stories. And all the history was handed down. That's the history they had. She knew, for instance, her mother told her that she should have been freed when she was 45 years that that was in the will of the man who had enslaved her. And that was a story that had been handed down from her grandmother to her mother to Harriet. And Harriet went and hired a lawyer. She was able to, she could freelance sometimes. She had, she was quite an operator. I mean, she was an entrepreneur of a kind. People liked her and they trusted her. And she paid a lawyer to look back and find that will. And he did. And she should have been freed. But she was not, even though it's said in the will, that she should have been freed. But she could talk plenty. I mean, she could tell stories. She could perform. She could sing. People loved to hear her talk. She could entertain. I mean, if you could read the descriptions of what it was like when she would go to meetings of abolitionists to raise money for the Underground Railroad. And she would perform. And tell what it was like to be in slavery. Because there was a myth around that the slaves were happy. And so she went to say, this is what it's like. And she was really affected. And she did research individuals who were enslaved. You have to research the people who were enslaved and all of them. And also, you know, likewise, there were many people, white people, who have been voiced for Harriet. Because she was not leading right over the years and years and years. And her story has been told. And I'm assuming, based on your story, that you identify as white, right? I'm identified as white. Or do you? Are you? OK, so based on your story, you are another white person who's telling her story. So I was wondering what insights you had in researching and telling her story and writing this book on race and sociopolitically, in regard to having created this other story, another story. I don't know exactly how to answer that. I mean, I would not have written this book or the book before if I hadn't been, first of all, interested in race and also horrified by our history, American history. And I keep saying she is our hero because I think she is. And I think she is, her story is a necessity to be told. Whoever tells it. And I heard from a historian who wrote another biography of Harriet Tubman a few years ago. And she wrote an email and said, may a thousand Harriet's bloom. And that's been my position of, I mean, there can be that many biographies of Benjamin Franklin. I mean, whether the person is a man or a woman or a black person or a white person, I think whatever he or she can bring to the story of her heroism and her accomplishments would be useful and a good part of our education as a country to pay attention to these things. But as I said, race has been on my mind from child, babyhood, whenever I started thinking. You know, well, you know, growing up or even in history, now, Harriet Tubman, now, she's able to teach people that you hear about in school. You hear more about Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. You hear more about those types of people. But you know, he is so much different African-Americans throughout history who make different school, which is important at that time. Do you think that as the years go on, as people change, as the world evolves, that there will be more examples of people who weren't born in history so that the younger behind us can know more than just Harriet Tubman and why would it change? Right. You know, the same thing? I do. I do. And I think absolutely that's going to happen. And we'll have more biographies of women of all colors, because that's the other part of this equation. The many, many more biographies of male, whatever it is, soldiers, artists, writers, then there are of female. But it's probably been too long coming. But at least things have changed somewhat a little bit. And she said, mm-hmm. I didn't hear that. Can somebody? I thought it was the language of Harriet Tubman's speech. One. Marilyn. You know what she said when she went down to South Carolina and people on the island were people who are called Gullah background. And she said, I couldn't understand them. They couldn't understand me. So it wasn't just slave language. It was in a particular region. And you, mm-hmm. It was not built, you know. It was, you know, you've seen how it used to be firemen, past people in buckets along. That's the Underground Railroad was something like that. It was me doing my part here and somebody else doing his part here and somebody else doing his part there. The Underground Railroad had to remain secret, because it was illegal. People could have been put in prison for a long time for participating in it. So it. Things that actually are railroads, you might have to go back and explain. It was called, and it's not known where the phrase came from. There was one, there's somebody said, that somebody else said that some enslaved people were escaping and it seemed like they disappeared, like there was an Underground Railroad that whisked them away across the Ohio River. And so it became, that may or may not be how the phrase became, but it set once it was there. And now it's, I mean, there's a book of a really important book called The Underground Railroad, which is a man in Philadelphia who kept the record of enslaved people who came through there on their way to Canada. So it was called that then as well. I work for Caledonia State Park, which is located 20 miles west of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. And it's also located just north of Mason Dixie Line. And it's 18,000 acres that was owned by the abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens. And Thaddeus Stevens lost money on the Caledonia fireworks the 30 years that he owned it from 1830 to 1865. And so the certain standard evidence is that Caledonia fireworks was just a front business for the Underground Railroad. Oh really? We think it was a major conduit, but there's no real clear evidence, direct evidence. I didn't know if you had any. I did not know, but Thaddeus Stevens was a real hero. Right. Yeah, I don't know. Anybody else? Thank you so much. Now you know why I wanted very much to have family here with us. I want to remind you again that her book, Harriet Tubman, a biography imagining a life is on sale in the gift store, she has signed it. They're signed copies down here, so they're extra special. And if you have any other questions afterwards, maybe she'll be happy to answer them. Thank you so much for coming today.