Politics and Society
Remembering Harriet Tubman with 10 inspirational quotes: First black person to feature on a U.S. banknote
The U.S. Treasury has announced that Harriet Tubman abolitionist, women’s rights advocate and freedom fighter, will feature on the front of the new $20 bill, replacing former President Andrew Jackson, who was a slave owner. Tubman becomes the first black person to appear on a U.S. banknote and the first woman in more than a century. The news continues to be celebrated on various platforms online.
Born Araminta Ross, Tubman was born a slave (circa. 1822 – 10 March 1913), and lived a remarkable life, devoting her life to rescuing others still in bondage.
Tubman escaped from slavery and led numerous campaigns to help other slaves gain their freedom, earning the moniker “Moses” after the Biblical prophet Moses who led his people from bondage to freedom. Through her remarkable work, Tubman influenced many in the civil rights movement and continues to inspire generations in the fight for equality, women’s rights, freedom and justice.
We celebrate her legacy and look at some of her inspirational quotes.
1. “Slavery is the next thing to hell.”
Harriet Tubman to Benjamin Drew, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, 1855.
2. “I grew up like a neglected weed, – ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it. Then I was not happy or contented.”
Harriet Tubman to Benjamin Drew, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, 1855.
A recently-found photograph of escaped slave, abolitionist and Union spy Harriet Tubman Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/AFP
3. “Oh, Lord! You’ve been wid me in six troubles, don’t desert me in the seventh!”.
Harriet, The Moses of Her People, 1886.
4. “I said to the Lord, I’m going to hold steady on to you, and I know you will see me through.”
Harriet Tubman, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman By Sarah Hopkins Bradford.
5. “When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven”.
Harriet Tubman, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman By Sarah Hopkins Bradford.
6. “I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land; and my home after all, was down in Maryland; because my father, my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and friends were there. But I was free, and they should be free.”
Harriet Tubman, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman By Sarah Hopkins Bradford
7. “I have heard their groans and sighs, and seen their tears, and I would give every drop of blood in my veins to free them”
Harriet Tubman, Harriet, the Moses of her People by Sarah Hopkins Bradford.
“There are two things I’ve got a right to, and these are, Death or Liberty – one or the other I mean to have. No one will take me back alive; I shall fight for my liberty, and when the time has come for me to go, the Lord will let them, kill me”. Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman By Sarah Hopkins Bradford
8. “I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say — I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”
Harriet Tubman at a suffrage convention, NY, 1896.
9. “…and I prayed to God to make me strong and able to fight, and that’s what I’ve always prayed for ever since.”
Tubman to Ednah Dow Cheney, SC, 1865
10. “I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say — I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”
Harriet Tubman at a suffrage convention, NY, 1896.
Source: Harriet-Tubman.org and wiki quote
