Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman also known as Black Moses, was an African-American abolitionist. An escaped slave, she worked as a farmhand, lumberjack, laundress, cook, refugee organizer, raid leader, intelligence gatherer, nurse, healer, revival speaker, feminist, fundraiser, and conductor on the Underground Railroad.
Sourced
- I freed thousands of slaves. I could have freed thousands more, if they had known they were slaves.
- As quoted in Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (2003) by Henry Louis Gates and Kwame Anthony Appiah, p. 299
Harriet, The Moses of Her People (1886)
- Quotations of Tubman from Harriet, The Moses of Her People (1886) by Sarah H. Bradford
- I looked at my hands, to see if I was de same person now I was free. Dere was such a glory ober eberything, de sun came like gold trou de trees, and ober de fields, and I felt like I was in heaven.
- On realizing that she had passed out of the slavery states into the northern states
- Modernized rendition: I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything. The sun came up like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in heaven.
- I knew of a man who was sent to the State Prison for twenty-five years. All these years he was always thinking of his home, and counting by years, months, and days, the time till he should be free, and see his family and friends once more. The years roll on, the time of imprisonment is over, the man is free. He leaves the prison gates, he makes his way to his old home, but his old home is not there. The house in which he had dwelt in his childhood had been torn down, and a new one had been put up in its place; his family were gone, their very name was forgotten, there was no one to take him by the hand to welcome him back to life.
So it was wid me. I had crossed de line of which I had so long been dreaming. I was free; but dere was no one to welcome me to de land of freedom, I was a stranger in a strange land, and my home after all was down in de old cabin quarter, wid de ole folks, and my brudders and sisters. But to dis solemn resolution I came; I was free, and dey should be free also; I would make a home for dem in de North, and de Lord helping me, I would bring dem all dere. Oh, how I prayed den, lying all alone on de cold, damp ground; 'Oh, dear Lord,' I said, 'I haint got no friend but you. Come to my help, Lord, for I'm in trouble!'- Modernized rendition: I had crossed thee line of which I had so long been dreaming. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom, I was a stranger in a strange land, and my home after all was down in the old cabin quarter, with the old folks, and my brothers and sisters. But to this solemn resolution I came; I was free, and they should be free also; I would make a home for them in the North, and the Lord helping me, I would bring them all there.
- Oh, Lord! You've been wid me in six troubles, don't desert me in the seventh!
Unsourced
- I can't die but once.
- I freed thousands of slaves; I could have freed more if they knew they were slaves.
- I never lost a passenger.
Disputed
- Children, if you are tired, keep going; if you are hungry, keep going; if you want to taste freedom, keep going.
- "Harriet Tubman never said this — it comes from one of the scores of juvenile Harriet Tubman fictionalized biographies." — Kate Larson, Harriet Tubman biographer.
- I love all of the african americans like they are my children.
- "African american" seems an ananchronistic term here, as the term was seldom used before the 1970s.
Quotes about Tubman
- One of the bravest persons on this continent.
- John Brown
- Excepting John Brown... I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people.
- Frederick Douglass
- I never met any person of any color who had more confidence in the voice of God.
- Thomas Garrett
- Her tales of adventure are beyond anything in fiction and her ingenuity and generalship are extraordinary. I have known her for some time — the slaves call her Moses.
- Thomas Wentworth Higginson
- I am where I am because of the bridges that I crossed. Sojourner Truth was a bridge. Harriet Tubman was a bridge. Ida B. Wells was a bridge. Madame C. J. Walker was a bridge. Fannie Lou Hamer was a bridge.
- Oprah Winfrey
- This reminds me of one of my favorite American heroines, Harriet Tubman. For when she made it to freedom after having been a slave and she got to New York and she could have been so happy to just stay at home and just breathe a big sigh of relief but she kept going back down South to bring other freed slaves to freedom. And she used to say, 'No matter what happens, keep going.'