U-TX at SA’s Catherine Clinton on Harriet Tubman & the Underground Railroad

[00:00:00] Alisha Searcy: Welcome back to the Learning Curve podcast. I’m your co host, Alisha Thomas Searcy, and excited to have a guest co host with me today, Jocelyn Chadwick. Welcome to the show. Hi, Alisha. It’s very nice to always help. Good. Well, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself? I know you’ve been on as a guest before, but would you remind our listeners who you are?

[00:00:44] Jocelyn Chadwick: Yes, I am an English teacher by heart. A professor and a scholar and an author, but at the ground of it, I will always be an English teacher. So that’s who I am.

[00:00:57] Alisha Searcy: I love it. Love it. Love it. Well, welcome. We’re excited about the show today. I want to jump in and talk about the new story of the week. We’ve got West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission launches micro credential program for State Colleges and Universities.

[00:01:13] This is a story by Katherine Skeldon. And so it’s very interesting, Jackson, as I was reading this article, what feels to me like a new thing, which is micro credentialing. And I think we all know kind of what certification programs There are a lot of different credentials that can exist, you know, at the college and university level.

[00:01:31] But this micro credentialing seems to be something slightly different, more nuanced in terms of employees essentially being able to develop skills quicker that they can kind of use to help in their current jobs. And so this article talks about how this credentialing program is working in West Virginia.

[00:01:52] And apparently there are several other states, including New York, Ohio, and Colorado, That have also been leading the way when it comes to micro credentialing in their colleges and universities. So I’m looking forward to seeing, you know, what comes of this. Some of the programs that they have, for an example, are like phlebotomy or grant and technical writing.

[00:02:14] I can use that in my job, auto tech or bookkeeping. And so a number of disciplines that people can take. Have you heard of this at all?

[00:02:25] Jocelyn Chadwick: I have heard about the micro credentialing, and to be honest, I’m, I’m a little curious about it. I won’t say concerned. I won’t say thrilled. I’ll just say I’m very curious as to how that works, how that works into the overall credentialing of an educator, so, and for what people want to do. If it’s so, when it says micro, I mean, it is very specific. So does that mean that, You have no other talents that you’re going to build on or can be built upon so that you can broaden your credibility, your marketability. So I’m curious.

[00:02:59] Alisha Searcy: I want to see how it works. Yeah, I think that’s a great question. And I think this article also speaks to the fact that, and I think Albert and I have talked about this a little bit in the past too, like what is A college education, what is it going to look like in the future?

[00:03:18] You know, how do these micro credentials help employees in terms of the workforce? So there are a number of companies who might be interested in this. Someone quoted in the article that says, imagine the working adult who can only take a few courses at a time, the recent high school graduate who wants to build a portfolio of skills quickly, or the mid career worker.

[00:03:39] who needs to reskill for a new job opportunity. With micro credentials, we can give those individuals practical career relevant tools they can apply immediately, whether they’re looking to advance in their current roles or pivot to new industries. So very interesting. To your point, I think it’s going to be a good thing to watch.

[00:03:58] I think it’ll be a great compliment to your traditional, you know, four year or even a two year degree that’s probably more broad versus something like this that’s very specific it sounds.

[00:04:10] Jocelyn Chadwick: Yeah, again, my concern is scaffolding. How do you scaffold with the micro? How can you scaffold and build out so that you’re, rather than attrition, you add to your knowledge base?

[00:04:22] How do you do that? Gotcha. Yeah, I just, again, as I said, I don’t know how it works. I, I’m not old fashioned, but I just want to have a better sense of not so being focused on one specific talent so that you can’t build out.

[00:04:41] Alisha Searcy: Makes a lot of sense. Well, to be continued. Yeah, yeah.

[00:04:47] Jocelyn Chadwick: Maybe then I can text about it and talk about it more.

[00:04:50] Alisha Searcy: Exactly. A few shows from now, we’ll see how it’s going. And so again, we’re very excited to have you on, Jocelyn. I know that our topic for today, we’re going to be talking about Harriet Tubman with Professor Catherine Clinton. But before we get to that interview, I know you have a favorite quote that you want to share from Harriet Tubman.

[00:05:11] Jocelyn Chadwick: Yeah, I do. I have three of them. They’re short and I picked them because we often think of Harriet Tubman as the Moses moving out of slavery into American freedom, but she had other traits, other attributes as she continued. I mean, this is a woman who participated in the Civil War. Yes. And so, I have three short quotes.

[00:05:33] We never think about how she achieved her own freedom. We think about her leading people out with a shotgun and threatening them to kill them if they didn’t keep moving, which was great. But when she finally was free, she had to do it. Try it a couple of times like Frederick Douglass. I love her quote.

[00:05:53] When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hand to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything. The sun came like gold through the trees and over the fields, and I felt like I was in heaven. Morrison and other writers refer to how slaves After they were no longer slaves, looked at body parts and said, these are my hands, these are my feet.

[00:06:22] And to hear Harriet Tubman describe it in such a way, freedom for her was feeling like she was in heaven. And I kept thinking about how one of the projects that we’re on, which we’re working, we had to deal with the Federalist Papers and that whole concept of freedom, as it’s mentioned over a hundred times in our Constitution.

[00:06:44] And she was not only herself free, but let so many people free. So it gave me a chance. I thank Kinder Institute because it gave me a chance to restate. How freedom really felt like, and what it meant to Harriet. So that’s one. And what I think that a number of people don’t know is that she had this amazing strength to push people on.

[00:07:11] I don’t know for folks who don’t have relatives in their background who have been slaves or live in southern states where you can actually see those trails and so forth. But when you see what they had to go through. She says, one of her quotes is, If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.

[00:07:32] If they’re shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going. As I said when I started, I’m an English teacher. I love her rhetoric and it’s just, it just has such a rhythm and such a power to get people in the woods at night trying to get through just to keep going.

[00:07:56] And the final one, I’m guessing most folks don’t know that she was a part of the suffrage movement, but um, she was a 19th century womanist and in helping Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Seneca Falls Conference. She writes her quotes. Is, I believe in the equality of all people, black or white, male or female.

[00:08:17] And that’s well before the feminist movement, even in the, in Britain in the 19th century. Harriet was out there, Ms. Tubman was out there proclaiming the role for women and being just an icon for women.

[00:08:32] Alisha Searcy: So that’s what I wanted to say about Harriet Tubman. That’s a lot to say, I think, and it’s perfect for the interview that we will have today.

[00:08:41] What I find interesting is that, as you said, people know Harriet Tubman as, you know, certainly a hero, right? Who led a number of people out of slavery, but you don’t know about the other roles that she’s played. And so I’m looking forward to this interview and hearing more. But I also appreciate that The quotes that you just added, especially that second one, it gave me chills to think about literally and physically all of the things that these people were having to endure to get to freedom.

[00:09:11] Absolutely. And what, even what it means now, right? The challenges we have now and the things that we need to overcome and we need to keep moving.

[00:09:21] Jocelyn Chadwick: It’s just, it’s phenomenal how relevant she is right now. And that she was a woman and just as strong as she could be. And I have admired Ms. Tubman for a very, very long time.

[00:09:34] Alisha Searcy: Yes. Well, we can definitely see why. So again, thanks for being with us. Coming up after the break, we have University of Texas at San Antonio’s Professor Katherine Clinton, who will discuss her biography on Harriet Tubman. So stay tuned.

[00:09:50] Catherine Clinton is the Denman Endowed Professor at the University of Texas, San Antonio. And an international research professor at Queen’s University, Belfast. Professor Clinton has also served on the faculties of the University of Benghazi, Harvard University, Brandeis University, Brown University, Wesley University, and the Citadel.

[00:10:21] She’s the author and editor of more than two dozen books. Including Harriet Tubman, The Road to Freedom, Mrs. Lincoln, A Life, and a book for young readers, I, Too, Sing America, Three Centuries of African American Poetry. Professor Clinton served as a consultant on several film projects, including Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.

[00:10:42] She received her A. B. from Harvard, was a Isabel Priggs Traveling Fellowship from Radcliffe. where she was awarded a master’s degree from the University of Sussex, England, and earned her Ph. D. in history from Princeton University. Professor Clinton, we are honored to have you. Welcome to The Learning Curve.

[00:11:01] Catherine Clinton: Thank you so much, Alisha.

[00:11:03] Alisha Searcy: So let’s jump in. You are an accomplished historian, whose focus is on the history of the South, the American Civil War, American women, and African American history. So can you talk about how you became interested in these topics, as well as provide a brief overview of your definitive biography of the abolitionist Harriet Tubman?

[00:11:24] Catherine Clinton: Well, thank you for that plug. I would like to say that when I was younger, I was very interested in the world beyond my Kansas City childhood, and when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and my city went up in flames, I asked questions of the adults around me. What was going on with America? What was the Anger and the agitation concerning racial issues and then when I went off to college I became very interested in gender issues and the two combined to be a really important focus for me.

[00:11:59] The intersection of sexual and racial tensions within our country’s history became a focus for me. I also felt that increasingly we knew much about some singular women in history but not about Everyday women and not about the lost women in history. And I wrote on white women before the American Civil War.

[00:12:25] And in my hubris, I thought I might write about women and the American Civil War. My mentor at Princeton, James McPherson, had made a big splash with his truly definitive Civil War history, Battle Cry of Freedom. And I thought, well, I better begin in the post war period and look at African American women.

[00:12:45] And when I came upon Harriet Tubman’s civil war and emancipation career and her reform work in the 19th century, I was really struck. And I was also shocked that we didn’t know the larger career of Harriet Tubman. At the turn of the 21st century, There were more than two dozen Harriet Tubman children’s books in print and books for young readers, but the last biography of her was published in 1943.

[00:13:16] And I thought that she really deserved for us to know about her. So, in my Harriet Tubman, The Road to Freedom, which was published 20 years ago, I wanted to not completely redefine her, but I thought by 2004, we needed to know more about her accomplishments, particularly as a freedom fighter. We know about her on the Underground Railroad, her bravery, her knowledge, her singular, Operations, that she became infamous in her own day, and she became the symbol of this important clandestine movement that was struggling to bring African Americans out of bondage.

[00:13:59] And in the middle of her struggles, the Civil War broke out. And what did she do? But she went behind enemy lines. She went into the South, and she worked clandestinely in both Virginia and in South Carolina, and her involvement in the Cumbee River Raid and her assault on their town. Amazing post war career, working for Black veterans, working for the disabled, as she herself had been disabled, was, I thought, a story well worth telling.

[00:14:31] And therefore, I’m very pleased, because it’s, 20 years since I wrote my biography and next week I’ll be going to a history conference with three other biographers of Harriet Tubman, all friends of mine. One is my former student, Taya Miles, who’s written a new book called Night Flyer. Another book on her, The Come Be Raid, by Etta Fields Black, and Dede Cooper Owens is writing about Tubman as a healer and Tubman as a self educated, really, genius when we look at what she accomplished.

[00:15:06] So, I feel we have to let a hundred Harriet’s bloom, and this is happening.

[00:15:12] Alisha Searcy: I love it. I’m so glad that you were that little girl asking questions. And to your point, we learn about Harriet Tubman in our history classes, but to your point, we don’t know enough about her. So we’re so excited to have you here and to learn more about her.

[00:15:27] I want to talk about, you know, circa 1822. Araminta Ross, who we later learn is Harriet Tubman, and we’ll talk about that shortly, was born to enslaved parents in Dorchester County, Maryland. She and her family were enslaved by the Broaddus family. Can you tell us about her early life, her family, formative experiences as an enslaved person in Antebellum, Maryland?

[00:15:53] Catherine Clinton: Yes, I feel that her early life was It’s very, very difficult to research as a traditional historian, but very enriching as a scholar of slavery, and that is over the past quarter century, there has been an enormous boom in slavery studies, and we are learning about people through the prism of Of records that scholars are now digging up.

[00:16:19] So when we say circa 1822, it means that the actual birthdates are often lost to the individuals themselves, to their families. But we know being born onto a planter slaveholder farm in Dorchester County, Maryland, she was from a very early age put out to work. We have some examples that as young as six.

[00:16:43] She would be sent away from her large family. We know she had brothers and sisters older. We know she had younger children that she might look after, but very quickly she was traded out to white families to look after their children. And she could recall both having to. Run away from violence within these homes and also to be struck in the middle of the night when a child that she was tending might cry instead of the mother going to the crying child, she might take a small whip and apply it to Harriet, who was supposed to keep the child quiet.

[00:17:24] So we know that she was at a very early age. Enduring the cruelties and harshness. Separation from her family so that she would often cry herself to sleep. And also she identified being within the household as being something very exploitative and harsh. And it led her to seek. She was quite sickly as a child, but we find that much of her sickness was because a master might send her out into the swamps to gather muskrats, and then she would fall ill and be sent home to her parents, but when she was in the nurturing care of her mother, Rit, and back among her brothers and sisters, she seemed to thrive.

[00:18:07] And indeed, she sought work alongside her brothers, outdoor work, rather than the outdoors. Allegedly less taxing domestic work of slavery.

[00:18:19] Alisha Searcy: Wow. What an awful way to have to live. Let’s talk more about her early life. She’s definitely endured a lot, and we know that she suffered a traumatic head wound when an irate overseer threw a heavy metal weight, intending to hit another enslaved person, but hit her.

[00:18:37] And so the injury caused dizziness and pain throughout her life. Can you talk about this episode and about her later visions, premonitions from God, and her devout religious faith.

[00:18:48] Catherine Clinton: Yes, we know that Harriet was a exemplar in many ways, and one of the ways that modern scholarship has featured her is that she was suffering from a disability most of her adult life.

[00:19:03] The source of this disability is a matter of dispute and speculation because we don’t have. Medical records, but I found several cases where witnesses would say that she would be speaking and she would lose time, which could be a form of narcolepsy. It could be a form of epilepsy. And we also know that she did investigate a head wound that she had been hit by this heavy lead weight.

[00:19:33] And at the time. The weight went into her skull and she complained about part of the bandana being embedded within her broken skull. So we know how serious that kind of injury was. Her mother was able to nurse her back to life. Whether her dreams and her visions were connected to that or whether they were connected to her very deep faith is also perhaps a matter of speculation.

[00:20:00] I remember when I was first Shopping my book to various editors and they would say, Well, Harriet seemed to think that she could speak directly to God. How are you going to handle that? And I remember saying, well, as a biographer, I would report that she did believe that she spoke directly to God and that he sent her messages and visions.

[00:20:24] And many of her messages and visions may have allowed her to have her extraordinary career. Because she really was able to be an amazing leader and someone who inspired others to follow her. And so her devout religious faith, she was illiterate, she nevertheless heard the Bible, and she was befriended by ministers, and she used a lot of Christian rhetoric in order to accomplish her Underground Railroad feats.

[00:20:58] Alisha Searcy: Wow. She’s an incredible figure and human being. I mentioned a few minutes ago Araminta Ross, which is her original name.

[00:21:07] Catherine Clinton: Her birth name.

[00:21:08] Alisha Searcy: Her birth name, thank you. Can you talk about her name change? You know, what prompted that? And then would like for you to talk more about her life and her slave testimony.

[00:21:18] Many African American families had both free and enslaved members. So if you could talk about what we know about her husband, their marriage, the lives of husbands and wives during that time, and their children during enslavement.

[00:21:34] Catherine Clinton: We have to really appreciate what an extraordinary Women she was because for a marriage between a free Black and a slave, the children of an enslaved woman would inherit the status of their mother.

[00:21:52] And so she married a free Black man, John Tubman. We know very little about him, but we know she was devoted to him. She was drawn to him. She indeed perhaps loved him more than anything except her freedom. And we know that when she was married to him, she was able to go to a lawyer and to surmise that because of a disobeyed clause in a will, her mother was not given her legitimate freedom.

[00:22:26] That she was to be freed by the age of 45 and any subsequent children would be freed. And we don’t really have enough of a recording on that, but we do know that Tubman, seeking freedom, collected her money and was able to put forward that she had the right to freedom. And was denied that right. And I think after that, she became nerved by right and determined that she should be free, her parents should be free, her brothers and sisters should be free.

[00:22:56] Unfortunately, we know that Tubman. Did not wish to leave with her. She decided at a juncture when it was quite common during this period, especially when you were enslaved and your loved ones were free, that you at any time could be separated from them by a sail. And the death of an owner immediately jeopardized entire families.

[00:23:23] Entire couples and planter lives may have ended, but they shattered many more lives with slave sales. And therefore, fearing a slave sale, after she proved that she indeed deserved her freedom, she was intent upon freedom. And eventually, was someone who brought many of her family members to freedom.

[00:23:48] Tubman did not go with her on her first, perhaps most dangerous escape, because she was a lone black woman trying to make her way to freedom on the Delmarva Peninsula. She had no knowledge of the wider world, but she used her common sense. She used her Knowing how the moss grew on trees, she followed the North Star and made her way to freedom along a route taken by many other North Stars.

[00:24:16] Enslaved people along the Underground Railroad during that period.

[00:24:21] Alisha Searcy: My mind is blown to think about someone who’s not formally educated, couldn’t read, but was savvy enough to understand that she was supposed to be free legally.

[00:24:33] Catherine Clinton: She read the stars, and she also was so clever in that later in her career, she would be given Daguerreotypes, images, pictures.

[00:24:44] It didn’t matter what people’s names were unless they were visually identified by her as a friend through the Underground Railroad. She was making her way along a road. spiritual journey, but also a journey of friends of abolition people, especially the African American community that would hide fugitive slaves and see them through to freedom.

[00:25:11] Alisha Searcy: I want to go a little bit deeper in terms of her Escape in 1849 to Philadelphia. And then soon after returned to Maryland, you mentioned this to rescue her family and friends. And so gradually she liberated relatives and eventually guided dozens of other enslaved people to freedom, which we hear about often.

[00:25:31] Could you tell us more about her flight to freedom, how she accomplished it? Maybe who helped her and some of the obstacles she and other enslaved people overcame to secure freedom from slavery.

[00:25:43] Catherine Clinton: Well, we of course have very few records about this because it was a clandestine network. We do know that Williams still in Philadelphia.

[00:25:53] Tubman kept a book about escaped slaves coming to Philadelphia, seeking their freedom, and indeed, he kept this book hidden in a tree until after the Civil War, because finding this could throw him and his whole network in jail. At the time, we know that Tubman was able to give a quilt to a white woman.

[00:26:19] Perhaps it was a neighbor in the neighborhood. Perhaps it was someone who seemed friendly. But all we know is that this trade of the quilt was something that led to her immediate escape from the area. And she made her way northward. She had a Some information about where to go, and Philadelphia was really an eye opening, transformative experience for her, because she met such a large free Black community, and she was welcomed in and given a place to stay, and given relative safety, and that’s how she was able to then decide what That she would join a very elite cadre within the Underground Railroad Movement, and they were known as abductors.

[00:27:07] We don’t use the term today in modern history because of its association with negative qualities, but we know that people would Come to her telling about a relative and asking her if she could help them, lead them to freedom. And so in an attempt, she made some amazing returns to Dorchester County. We know that.

[00:27:31] As a black woman on a train moving southward, it was not quite as alarming as being on a train going northward. She often disguised herself, it was said, by holding a newspaper and pretending to be literate. She also would return to the village near Dorchester where her enslaved family were still ensconced and she might hold chickens on a string and have them flap about.

[00:28:01] Whenever she saw someone who might recognize her. So we know that she had a skilled set of disguise in order to liberate her relatives and bringing them to safety, she felt was the most important thing she could do, but along the way, she believed that she could seek help from the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia and her fame as Moses, the rescuer of her people.

[00:28:28] was such that we know money was actually collected and donated from international anti slavery societies. That at one point, she went into the Delaware office of Thomas Garrett, who was a major supporter of hers, and sat there until he was able to find the money so she could go south and rescue someone who was in dire straits that a family member had begged her.

[00:28:56] The money had come from Um, in Edinburgh Ladies Society, directly to Garrett, and he gave her that money, which enabled her to rescue. So she was really, as I said, part of this very elite group. We only know about many of the other abductors because they were thrown in jail. Some of them dying in jail. So her skill and accomplishment, she would travel by night.

[00:29:21] Not by day. She would often wade across streams. She actually carried a gun during her escapes in order to keep her charges together. At some point we know that those people escaping slavery feared the bloodhounds, feared the slave catchers, the elements. But Harriet Tubman was someone who led them following the North Star, going all the way to upstate New York.

[00:29:50] It’s said that she brought people to sleep on the floors of Frederick Douglass home. So she was someone who was well connected in the anti slavery network.

[00:30:02] Alisha Searcy: She gives fearless a whole other definition.

[00:30:05] Catherine Clinton: Definitely.

[00:30:07] Alisha Searcy: Can you talk about the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and what this meant politically for the country and the abolitionist movement?

[00:30:15] Also how Moses continued to help guide escapees amid the mortal dangers and political, regional, and moral divisions in the 1850s America?

[00:30:27] Catherine Clinton: We have to remember that Harriet began her career in the midst of the turmoil. of the Fugitive Slave Act, who had a Fugitive Slave Act from the 1790s, but enforcement and compelling Northerners to adhere to slaveholders laws was part of the Compromise of 1850.

[00:30:49] But with this, it allowed Slave catchers, bounty hunters from the South to enter into free states and to go to their lawmakers, to go to their jailers, to go to their sheriffs and demand assistance with apprehending and returning the enslaved to the South. This caused great consternation. It caused a lot of Uproars in state legislatures, and it increased, as you point out, the mortal dangers because anyone could assist this return of the slaves during the 1850s.

[00:31:26] And she kept finding new ways to bring people to freedom, to escape, and it actually meant that she had to go further and further north. So, uh, Tubman created a base in St. Catharines in Canada across the border, and she took great pride that she was leading people, usually across the Niagara Falls border.

[00:31:50] She called it Under the Lion’s Paw. The protection of Canada, a British Commonwealth, where people were protected freedom and bounty hunters could not cross the line of international borders to recover slave property. So that was something that I think she took great pride in during this era. It also meant that the rescue of the enslaved and the battle of the Over free and enslaved African Americans became a tinderbox in America, which led her into the sphere of, under the sway of John Brown, who she first met in Canada.

[00:32:35] Alisha Searcy: I’m glad you brought that up. In 1858, that’s when she met John Brown. who’s considered a radical abolitionist and helped him plan and recruit supporters for his 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry. He called her General Tubman, which played a pivotal role in further sparking the American Civil War. So can you talk about her relationships with other white and black abolitionists, including William Seward and Frederick Douglass?

[00:33:01] Catherine Clinton: Yes, I think that John Brown was a real, Turning point for her because of her religious faith. And here she was encountering a white man who was fighting for black freedom and willing to, to really risk his life. He had been in battle at Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas. He had really a vengeful rescue mission and that mission led to the raid on Harper’s Ferry.

[00:33:32] He invited her on that. He called her General Tubman and several times addressed her as a he, which shows in a way what the gender attitudes were during this period that she was so remarkable. That she must be a man. I point this out because we also know that Sojourner Truth, the equally fearless freedom fighter in antebellum America, was also challenged about her sex.

[00:33:59] So we see that women who strayed outside the boundaries, particularly women of color, were often challenged to be in some way Amazons or not. Not, quote, normal women, but they were women who were rising to the cause, and through a network of other assistants, they were able to really achieve great heights.

[00:34:20] Frederick Douglass was a great fan of Harriet Tubman’s. He said, the midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to To freedom and of your heroism. So he recognized that she was someone who was going above and beyond. William Seward, who lived in the town of Auburn, where she had settled in the North before the need to cross the border into Canada to protect those she was bringing to freedom.

[00:34:51] Seward was someone very influential after all. He was one of Lincoln’s great rivals. In 1860 for the presidency and after being defeated in the nominating process, he became a stalwart supporter of Lincoln’s and indeed someone who stood up against the slave of power. And in his private life, he gave donations in his hometown and he supported those who were.

[00:35:20] Working through the Underground Railroad. So she was someone who could speak in parlors. She may have been illiterate, but it was said that her speeches in Boston and elsewhere brought people to the cause. And the cause was freedom. The cause was an end to slavery. The cause was to make America live up to its original promise.

[00:35:41] Alisha Searcy: Yes. Again, just mind blowing and fascinating. Can we talk about when the Civil War began, Harriet Tubman worked for the Union Army as a cook and a nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. Again, things that we’ve not learned about her previously. And so for her role at the raid at Kumbi Ferry, which liberated more than 700 enslaved people, she’s regarded as the first woman.

[00:36:07] United States woman to lead an armed military operation. So can you tell us more about her during the civil war years?

[00:36:15] Catherine Clinton: Well, yes, the Harriet Tubman film that was released recently, prominently featured that aspect of her career. And although it is perhaps a slight exaggeration, it nevertheless, Does mean that there were white men involved with the army and raids in South Carolina who entrusted her with the strategy and planning of that military operation.

[00:36:42] And indeed, by liberating. 700 enslaved off of plantations, and it struck at the heart of Dixie, particularly the Middleton Plantation and others on the Cumbie River Raid, as it’s called, was just infamous in its own day. It was written about in the newspapers, and she was referred to anonymously as a black woman.

[00:37:06] Working for the Union Army as a scout and spy. And her role was really intrepid. When the war first broke out, she went into Virginia and worked within the contraband camps. Those were escaped slaves who joined the Union Army. And the legalese for it was that they were, quote, property being seized. But very quickly, this property was turned into soldiers.

[00:37:31] over the evolution of the role of Blacks in the American Civil War. Her role was quite special, that she might have been a cook, a nurse, but her real genius was to go as far south as Fernandina, Florida, in order to help the Army with its operations of rescue. And this was something that I think was an untold story, and therefore, we’re very In my own book, The Road to Freedom, I place it at the very center of the book as a transformative experience.

[00:38:03] That she was there when emancipation was read out in Beaufort. She was there at a time when spontaneously the African Americans rose in song to sing my country tis of thee. She was there. And her Civil War years, I think, were quite special and important. It’s just as important to see, however, that when she tried to return home to Auburn.

[00:38:33] On a military pass, the pass was disbelieved and she was thrown into the baggage car by porters on the train. Wow.

[00:38:45] Alisha Searcy: So I wanna talk about some of the later years in 1859. We know that the sewers, the wife was an abolitionist, the husband, a Republican, United States Senator. sold Tubman a seven acre farm in upstate New York.

[00:38:59] The neighboring city of Auburn was a hotbed of anti slavery activism, and her farm became a haven for family, friends, and borders, offering a safe haven for African Americans. So as we begin to close, can you talk about Harriet Tubman’s later life, her association with The women’s suffrage movement and her towering legacy in the United States history.

[00:39:22] Catherine Clinton: Yes. Well, she was someone who, after her return to Auburn and retirement, did not rest quietly covered in laurels. She actually came back quite frail from her very strenuous career. And she was only 44 at the time, but she was rallied round by the community in Auburn, and she tackled what she thought were reforms that were necessary.

[00:39:51] She opened her home, that she was still paying off the mortgage to the Sewards, and she opened her home to be, as you point out, a safe haven. She even proclaimed it the Harriet Tubman home. And it was the only charity that accepted African Americans outside New York City in the state of New York. So she was there administering to veterans, administering to the deaf, administering to the blind.

[00:40:22] She was someone who always believed in reaching out and helping others. She also knew that women’s suffrage was something that would give women a greater power. For She ran her farm and did what she could in order to raise cattle to pay the taxes. And she also went to women’s suffrage associations. And her great, great power was that she had optimistically seen the end of the slave power, which she did not believe would happen in her lifetime.

[00:40:57] She then became quite an amazing woman. Rock Contour, and she would go to conferences, she would go to meetings, and tell her stories, and her storytelling was so remarkable that people would open their purses, contribute to her charitable home, and see her as the remarkable icon that she was. She was someone who brought black and white together because of her humanitarian work.

[00:41:23] And as a humanist, I think she really did try and shift the movement toward black and white together, towards men supporting women’s suffrage. And she was given many celebrations in her hometown because she was recognized. as such an important leader. Indeed, a plaque was put up on the local courthouse in her honor.

[00:41:49] And I suggest this is the first time a black woman was given such an honor in her hometown of Auburn. So her life and legacy was recognized by leaders like Booker T. Washington, and Susan B. Anthony. There was a home established in Boston in her name. And I thought that the Underground Railroad was a remarkable story, but it’s even more remarkable to see how her influence and her legacy extended.

[00:42:21] Indeed, at her death in 1913, I point out that she, died the same month that Rosa Parks was born.

[00:42:30] Alisha Searcy: Powerful. This has been absolutely important and fascinating. And I’m just grateful for this opportunity to talk to you today. If you could, I would love for you to close us out by reading us, perhaps your favorite passage from your Harriet Tubman biography.

[00:42:50] Catherine Clinton: Well, I have so many that I at the same time want to say that I’m going to Pick the conclusion of a chapter called Harriet Tubman’s Legacy. Born into an age of darkness, an age when America was in thrall to slavery, Harriet Tubman freed herself and was reborn. She renamed herself and hoped to lead others into Canaan as well.

[00:43:15] This was not because she saw herself as a hero, but because she believed she was doing the Lord’s bidding. Not unlike Joan of Arc, with whom she was frequently compared, Harriet Tubman viewed herself as an instrument of God. Tubman did not manifest any messianic qualities, nor did she particularly see herself as chosen.

[00:43:35] She did not trust in fate as much as the power of prayer, and in the individual’s ability to seize her own destiny. Tubman embraced a much more universalist view. Each and every person has the light of God within. And just like the song, she was going to let her shine. But history is a witness to Tubman’s heroic deeds and sacrifices along the road to freedom.

[00:44:01] And although historians may have too long ignored it, her past remains before us. All around us, and urging us, in her own words, keep going.

[00:44:12] Alisha Searcy: And there you have it. Professor Katherine Clinton, thank you, thank you, thank you for your time today. Thank you for cementing the story of this African American woman in our history.

[00:44:24] We are grateful for your work and your contributions to history as well.

[00:44:28] Catherine Clinton: Thank you.

[00:44:41] Alisha Searcy: Wow, that was such a phenomenal interview. As always, I learned so much, Jocelyn, so thank you again for being with us. And before we close, I’ve got to do our tweet of the week. And this one was interesting. It’s on Education Week on X, and it says about a third of high school teachers say they’ve used AI tools to write recommendation letters.

[00:45:05] And so, it talks about whether or not this technology has helped or hindered the process. And I thought this was a very cool tweet, because we’re having these conversations across the country about the role of AI. I actually thought it was quite entertaining to know that teachers are using it themselves.

[00:45:20] And of course, the argument will be made that students shouldn’t use it because they’re trying to develop their skills and writing and all of that. But I do think it speaks to the fact that using AI can be done effectively in ways that can help. Make your life a little bit easier because I can only imagine how many letters of recommendations teachers have to write.

[00:45:38] So check that out on Education Week on X. So again, Jocelyn, thank you again for joining us. I, again, appreciate the quotes that you added to this conversation. Great interview. Just a wonderful time. So thank you, thank you, thank you for joining us. Thank you, Alisha. It means quite a bit to me, so I really appreciate it.

[00:45:59] Thank you. Excellent. And make sure you join us next week. We’ll have Jeffrey Myers, who is one of 12 Americans in the British Royal Society of Literature and the author of 54 books, including Edgar Allan Poe, His Life and Legacy. We’ll see you next week.