I included Harriet Tubman in my NOMO selection for BHM in 2021 and after watching the film Harriet, a biography movie starring Cynthia Erivo – if you’ve not met Cynthia do check her out, she’s a great actor with the most fabulous voice as featured in the proms at the Royal Albert Hall on the 17 July 2022. Cynthia doesn’t have children and at 35 it’s probably too early for me to add her to my #BlackNomoRoleModels collection but I’ll keep my eye out for how her (living without children) status develops.
As you (probably) know, Harriet Tubman (formally named Minty) was an American abolitionist and social activist who, born into slavery ran away because she was fearful of being sold and separated from her family. What I learnt from the film was that she had married (with permission from her then slave master) to a free man who after hiring a lawyer went to Harriet’s slave master to ask him to release Harriet into freedom as they didn’t want their children born into slavery. Harriet’s master refused and after his death shortly after, Harriet’s ownership was then passed onto his son who promptly put her up for sale. About a year after her escape and believing that God had spoken to her, Harriet returned for her husband only to discover that he, thinking that she had died whilst trying to escape, had remarried and had children with a free woman. Heartbroken and questioning God, Harriet soon discovered that she would then go on to help her first set of slaves escape enslavement. Unprepared and determined Harriet led them to freedom.
At the age of 13, Harriet sustained a head injury that left suffering with narcolepsy. As a result Harriet was seen as weak and vulnerable and was underestimated by others who certainly did not see her as someone who was capable of rescuing approximately 70 slaves let alone becoming a Union scout during the Civil War – FYI Harriet never lost a slave. Harriet courageously returned to Maryland at least 13 times over the course of a decade to rescue her parents, brothers, family members, and friends, guiding them safely to freedom. By 1860, she had earned the nickname “Moses” for liberating so many enslaved people at great risk to her own life using her blackouts to her advantage believing that she was hearing from God to guide her way. Harriet showed herself to be a strong and determined woman who believed in herself and her capabilities, where as a black enslaved, illiterate woman, no one would have imagined what she was capable of. There was a scene in the film where Harriet was being strongly discouraged from taking the journey back to rescue slaves as she was seen as physically incapable of undertaking this task. Harriet shouted back “Don’t tell me what I can do”. This dialogue took me back to my school days (in the late 80s/ early 90s) where I was asked if I had considered being a shopkeeper by a careers advisor and my teachers believed that I was not capable of undertaking A levels. With a masters in Biomedical Science and a diploma in management behind me (let alone everything else I have accomplished) I wish I stood up back then and shouted “Don’t tell me what I can do” at my teachers!!!
Harriett later remarried and dedicated her life to helping free slaves, the elderly and Women’s suffrage. She dies on the 10th March 1913 her last words being “I go to prepare a place for you” – these words feel so close to home, with all that I’ve been through, that other black women, childless women childless women have been through I feel that by standing up and facing our grief, by not being silent, by shouting “Don’t tell me what I can do” we are all preparing a place for those who will come after us…
The fact that Harriet never had children wasn’t portrayed in the film left me wondering how much more would she have been celebrated if she had been a mother. I also wondered why she was childless, was it by choice or by circumstance? Was this part of her defiant nature? Was this her sacrifice for the greater good? Would Harriet have accomplished what she had if she had children? Whatever the answers I suspect it would not have been left unanswered if she’d had children.
“Come at me with your most dangerous storm and watch me explode into a million unsullied rainbows
Bite me as hard as you can to crush my bones with your muck-covered lies, and watch me transform into a continent of untouched forest.
Inject me with your deepest fear, and watch me walk fearless and naked through the fires of hell, a flame-resistant angel of Earth with my wings at full breadth and a smile across my face.
My power is no longer a well for you to sip from.
My worth is no longer yours to take.“
The She Book, Tanya Markul
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