Meet Harriet Tubman at the Cumberland County Library
On Saturday, September 8, the Cumberland County Library in Bridgeton, NJ will host a free public presentation, “Harriet Tubman at the Cumberland County Library”. Scholar and actor Dr. Daisy Century of The American Historical Theatre will portray Harriet Tubman in an hour long performance including time for questions and answers from the audience. This free presentation begins at 2 p.m. in the library’s Meeting Room, in the lower level of the library.
Born Araminta Ross, Harriet Tubman lived as a slave on a Maryland plantation. Frequently threatened, beaten, whipped, and starved, Ms. Tubman’s indomitable spirit could not be broken. Suffering from a head wound incurred when a furious overseer aimed a two-pound weight at another slave, but missed, Harriet Tubman suffered from seizures for the rest of her life. But even this daunting physical obstacle could not keep her from her freeing herself and freeing others from slavery. A Union spy during the Civil War as well as a nurse, Ms. Tubman directed her considerable energies towards humanitarian causes that included women’s suffrage after the war.
Dr. Daisy Century considers Harriet Tubman her role model, someone who encouraged her to put others first and to lead by example. Like her inspiration, Daisy grew up on a farm, has a wonderful singing voice and is a determined woman of conviction: once they start a project, they must see it through to completion. Harriet Tubman reveals a woman who made up her mind as a young girl that things could be better than they were, “I had reasoned this out in my mind. There was one of two things I had a right to – liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other.” Tubman shows us a woman who found freedom for herself and then made sure others were brought to freedom. The brave woman who rescued more than seventy slaves using the Underground Railroad declared, “I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.” Harriet Tubman takes each and every audience member along for this ride.
Funding has been made possible in part by the New Jersey Historical Commission /Department of State and the Cumberland County Board of Chosen Freeholders through the Cumberland County Cultural and Heritage Commission.
Cumberland County Library is located at 800 East Commerce Street in Bridgeton, NJ, 08302. For more information, call (856) 453-2210, ext. 103.