Harriet Tubman Day pop-up exhibit at Stages of Freedom

While no date is known, March is Harriet Tubman’s birth month. Born in 1820, Tubman, the great Black abolitionist, was dubbed “Moses” for her fearless and multiple expeditions to the North that freed over 300 people enslaved in the South. In 2008, the Rhode Island General Assembly resolved that March 10th is Harriet Tubman Day in Rhode Island. 

Beginning the week of March 6th, Stages of Freedom’s African American Museum, located at 10 Westminster Street, Providence, will offer a pop-up exhibit to honor Harriet Tubman’s legacy and Rhode Island connections.

Tubman’s associations with Rhode Island aren’t immediately apparent but are nonetheless important. On June 2, 1863, Tubman, by then a celebrated spy and militia leader for the Union Army, was joined by the 3rd Rhode Island Heavy Artillery in a raid on Combahee Ferry that freed over 800 enslaved people. Tubman had further interactions with Rhode Island African Americans who served in the elite all-Black 54th Regiment, cooking meals for them and witnessing their doomed attack on Fort Wagner, brilliantly depicted in the film Glory. She was forever changed by their bravery and valor, and later said, “And then we saw the lightning, and that was the guns; and then we heard the thunder, and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling, and that was the drops of blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.”

Everyone is welcome to visit Stages of Freedom’s African American Museum to view the Harriet Tubman exhibit and learn more about the evolving museum.