She Choose Freedom - Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was born a slave at a time when people of color had choices regarding the matter.

Born a slave, Araminta Ross later adopted her mother’s first name, Harriet. From early childhood she worked variously as a maid, a nurse, a field hand, a cook, and a woodcutter. About 1844 she married John Tubman, a free black.

Not much is known about her husband except that he was a free man, who obviously wasn't free enough to protect his wife.

In 1849, on the strength of rumours that she was about to be sold, Tubman fled to Philadelphia, leaving behind her husband, parents, and siblings. In December 1850 she made her way to Baltimore, Maryland, whence she led her sister and two children to freedom. That journey was the first of some 19 increasingly dangerous forays into Maryland in which, over the next decade, she conducted upward of 300 fugitive slaves along the Underground Railroad to Canada. By her extraordinary courage, ingenuity, persistence, and iron discipline, which she enforced upon her charges, Tubman became the railroad’s most famous conductor and was known as the “Moses of her people.” It has been said that she never lost a fugitive she was leading to freedom.

Tubman choose freedom at a time it could very well have cost her life, a time characterized by unimaginable brutality the present day may not comprehend.

It is a shame that with so many sacrifices to attain freedom, some have choosen to be willing slaves today. They deliberately allow the Government and other third parties dictate their life and are even satisfied with the crumbs off the table.

Tubman remains an inspiration to all those who choose freedom over slavery and forever subscribe to higher standards of human dignity.