March 10, 1913 saw the death of the one of America’s most inspiring women. A civil rights leader, a freedom fighter, a risk taker and a former slave, Harriet Tubman’s life is commemorated each year on the anniversary of her death. Not only a great woman and an African American icon, Tubman is an American inspiration.

Born into slavery in 1820, Tubman escaped a stifling existence in 1849 when she ran away from the fields to save for a life with the free man she married five years earlier. Tubman traveled night and day by foot all the way to Philadelphia where she found work and set up home.  After saving her money for a year, Tubman journeyed back to Maryland to pick up her sisters and escort them to freedom.

Tubman returned to the south again to pick up her brothers. When she returned once more to the South to get her husband, Tubman discovered he had become a bigamist, remarrying in her absence. Instead of bringing him north to start their life together, Tubman took the rejection in her stride, found other slaves in need of assistance and conducted their safe passage to Pennsylvania. Tubman would make a total of 19 recorded trips to the south to rescue approximately 300 slaves.

Wanted poster’s dotted the south, calling for Tubman’s capture. The reward reached a staggering $40,000, showing the impact of Tubman’s bravery. Others were inspired by her work and her determination and the Underground Railroad blossomed.

The Underground Railroad was one of the first national social networks and consisted of both former slaves and northern abolitionists. Tubman did not start the network but became the poster child for its success. Her work as a conductor (one who entered a plantation posing as a slave and encouraging and guiding others in their escape) led her into danger time and again, but it seemed nothing could stop her efforts.

Running for decades, the railroad conductors and their assistants led thousands of former slaves to freedom.  Conductors acted as guides taking the former slaves from house to house (safe houses were often lit with a single candle in the front window) along well established routes. Tubman conducted both friends and family as well as total strangers to the safety of large northern cities where freed slaves could hide, find work and begin new lives.

10 years passed and Tubman retired from actively conducting slaves to working as a spokeswoman and abolitionist in the north. After all her work and a truly inspiring life, Harriet Tubman became known as a “Moses of the people,” leading folks out of drudgery and imprisonment to freedom and self determination.

During the Civil war, Tubman did not rest on her laurels but worked as a nurse, a cook and a spy for the Union Army. Her work was commemorated by civil rights leaders, American presidents and even in 1990, an act of Congress that declared March 10 Harriet Tubman Day in honor of all that she did for the progression of human rights in America.

When Tubman met up with the escaped slaves who feared recapture, she would always tell them “you’ll live free or die.” Tubman’s words express what it was to be a true American during the violent and trying times of slavery. And whether black, white, former slave or modern American, the words still find resonance today.

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Born out of the conflict between northern ideals and southern lifestyles, the abolitionist movement was the attempt of a few brave and determined souls to make positive change in America. Although there were many members of this movement whose actions and lives are noteworthy, Frederick Douglass remains a pioneer in the movement as well as an example of true courage and personal determination.

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”

Douglass was born on Valentine’s Day in 1818 into the slave world of Eastern Maryland. Life was hard for Douglass, not only as a slave but within his own family. Separated from his mother when he was just a few months old, Douglass was abandoned on a plantation by his own grandparents at the age of six. By eight he was living as a houseboy in Eastern Maryland working for a white woman who taught him how to read. Educating a slave was at the time illegal and the example served Douglass the rest of his life: he would only find freedom through risk.

Words began to have a strong effect on the young Douglass who showed an interest in speech writing and narrative non fiction. His current circumstances stifled his growing aspirations and Douglass escaped from slavery at the age of twenty in 1838. Making liberal leaning Massachusetts his new home, Douglas began a family and a lifelong career in the anti slavery movement.

Speaking publicly about his slave experience, Douglass put the power of the spoken word to good use. When it came to print, Douglass published his own newspaper as well as several autobiographies utilizing his natural writing abilities to promote the abolitionist cause. At times he feared for his recapture and spent time in the relative safety of Europe proliferating his anti-slavery rhetoric.

Quickly becoming a leading figure in the abolitionist movement, Douglass stirred audiences at home and abroad with the raw truthfulness of his words and his desire to bring change through awareness of slavery’s brutal repercussions. In 1841, a speech before the Massachusetts Anti Slavery group changed everything. His eloquence and ability was immediately recognized and his place as a lecturer among abolitionists confirmed. After having to prove his former slave status to those who doubted a man of such intelligence and self refinement could ever be held against his will, Douglass was recognized as the poster child for the early civil rights movement.

A strong kinship developed between Douglass and fellow abolitionist and newspaper man, William Lloyd Garrison. That was until talk of dissolving the union between the North and the South proved to undo their ties and send them in different directions to fight slavery.

Douglass became an advisor of President Lincoln during the Civil War (1861-1865) and helped garner black recruits for the union army. After the war came to a close, Douglass expanded his pro freedom agenda to include the rights of women, both black and white.

Making speeches on civil rights and giving lectures on the state of the reconstruction movement occupied a lot of Douglass’ time. Somehow he still managed to serve as the U.S. Marshall of Washington DC as well as Counsel General to Haiti. In 1872, Douglass was nominated to run for Vice President of the country. Throughout his life, Douglass was constantly setting the bar higher for himself and creating the bedrock of an American civil rights movement.

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On February 20, 1895, Douglass finished delivering a speech on women’s rights to the National Council of Women before sadly suffering a heart attack. The day of his death would include a standing ovation from the women’s council as even in his final moments, he managed to use words and the power of speech to make lasting impressions on the lives of others. To rise from slavery to head of the anti slavery

movement and to continue to fight for change long after the time for rest had come makes Douglass both a great American orator as well as an American hero.

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