It is so wonderful to learn that Harriet Tubman is going to grace our American twenty dollar bill.
In case you aren’t familiar…
She was born a slave somewhere around 1820.
At about the age of twenty-nine Harriet escaped to freedom. However, her first act after that dramatic escape was to return and gather up her family and lead them to freedom. She would eventually lead some thirteen bands of escaped slaves out of bondage.
In the run up to the Civil War she assisted John Brown in preparing for his raid on Harper’s Ferry. During the war she worked as a cook, as a nurse, and eventually as an armed scout and spy. Harriet Tubman is counted as the first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war when she led the raid on Combanhee Ferry, freeing a hundred slaves.
Talk about a self made person. An archetype of our American dream.
When the war ended, she retired to her home in Auburn, New York, where she focused on caring for her elderly parents.
But unable to just rest on her laurels, Harriet Tubman soon turned to women’s suffrage, which she labored for until old age and illness overtook her.
Harriet Tubman died in 1913, an American hero, well deserving of replacing one of our more problematic presidents on our currency.
Great decision.
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