I went back to my hometown to visit family, which I do on a fairly regular basis. I come from Syracuse, New York, which for those of you who think the entirety of New York State is paved is the “Canada” part of New York State. We’ve got a lot to be proud of up there, like salt potatoes, a thriving craft beer culture, and of course historical links with the antislavery movement, abolitionism, and the Underground Railroad. And, of course, we had Harriet Tubman for a while.
Harriet Tubman, for those of you who are unfamiliar with one of the single most amazing figures in U. S. history, was born into slavery in Maryland. She suffered abuse by the various people claiming to own her*, which left her with serious neurological issues for the rest of her life. Those neurological issues didn’t stop her from not only escaping from slavery herself but returning to the south and freeing others. She helped to recruit people for John Brown’s doomed raid on Harper’s Ferry. She worked for the Union Army as a cook, nurse, armed scout, and spy. After the war, she worked for women’s suffrage (another struggle for which Upstate New York is well known.)
When I was a little girl, my ADD diagnosis and my advanced reading skills got me sent to the school library on a pretty regular basis. It was probably done so I wouldn’t be disruptive, but to six-year-old me it was like being set loose in a candy store and being told everything was for free. One of the two favorite books I had in that library was a biography of Harriet Tubman. I read it again and again. Harriet Tubman was a goddess to me, the kind of figure who pushed me forward and taught me to think outside the narrow confines of the world in which I lived.
The lessons from that biography, intended for middle grades readers, have stayed with me my whole life. When I had trouble with my masters’ program, Harriet Tubman was there. She had developed narcolepsy due to a head injury, caused by an irate slaveholder, and that didn’t stop her from facing death thirteen times to rescue people who depended on her. Who was I to let something stupid like anxiety or ADD stop me?
If Harriet Tubman could avoid a slave catcher by pretending to be literate – holding the book upside down, because enslaved people couldn’t be taught to read under the law at that time – I could certainly fake confidence well enough to get through a presentation at work.
At any rate, Harriet Tubman was a major hero of mine. She didn’t live in
Syracuse for any length of time, but she died and was buried in Auburn, New York. Auburn is a short distance west of Syracuse, and it also happens to be the place where my uncle is currently living. On my last visit to Syracuse, my dad and I headed out to Auburn to visit my uncle. Since we had a few extra minutes and we were in the area, I asked if we could stop by the Harriet Tubman House.
The house was closed at that point, but we still pulled into the driveway. I walked up to the door and touched the door frame. It’s not a big house. It’s not fancy. It’s a perfectly normal home, sized for a human being. Not a legend, and not a goddess. I didn’t get to see any of the indoors, but I got to walk where I imagine she walked. It was a little overwhelming.
When I look at the fictional characters I love most, whether the ones I like to write or the ones I enjoy in others’ work, I tend to embrace the ones who’ve overcome overwhelming odds. I think I can trace it all back to that biography in Salem Hyde Elementary School, back when I was a tiny little kid. It was incredible to have that opportunity – both to walk where she’d walked, and to have access to that book.
* Yes, I’m aware that these people did legally own her. Morally, ethically, and rationally, people are not property. Hence “claimed to own her,” instead of “her owners.”