Tubman Legacy Getting New Attention EASTERN SHORE, MD (wypr) - Federal, state and regional efforts are being proposed to honor Harriet Tubman, the famed Maryland native who escaped slavery, then led others to freedom via the Underground Railroad. WYPR's Donna Marie Owens reports.

It's a bright September morning on Maryland's Eastern Shore, in a pocket south of Cambridge where farmland and marshlands intertwine.

In a field filled with yellow wildflowers, butterflies and a chorus of insects, a dozen people have gathered under a tent for a major announcement. This picturesque landscape is a fitting place, said U.S. Senator Ben Cardin, to honor Harriet Tubman.

"The courage she had, not just to escape slavery, but to save so many, into freedom out of slavery, and for such a long period of time at personal risk. She was truly the Moses of the African-American population.

This 17-acre site, surrounded by the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, is being proposed as a future park and visitors' center to commemorate Tubman.

She was born a slave named Araminta Ross, say historians, a few miles from here.

"We believe she was born in 1822, February or March, based on several documents that have been unearthed in the past 10 years or so. And she was born enslaved to a family that was living in the Madison area, south of Woolford, in Dorchester County, Maryland.

That's historian Kate Clifford Larson. The Boston professor authored the 2003 biography Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero.

For decades, mystery and myth has surrounded Tubman's storied life. Larson's book sheds new light. Among its details: the nearly 30 years Tubman spent in bondage on the Eastern Shore, and her eventual escape.

We actually know the date. She ran away September 17, 1849 Her runaway ad that was placed in a newspaper by her enslaver, Eliza Brodess, was discovered in Januray 2003 in a dumpster.

Tubman made her way to Philadelphia and freedom. Using the Underground Railroad network, she returned to Maryland over a decade or so, to liberate other slaves, including her parents.

A point of contention in Larson's book involves the numbers Tubman led to freedom.

We have done tremendous research on her rescue missions, her Underground Railroad activities, and we have discovered that she actually returned to Maryland to bring away about 70 friends and family members, not 300 people in 19 trips.

Yet, Tubman reportedly gave instructions to dozens of other slaves, adds Larson, helping them gain freedom, too.

No matter the actual numbers, the author praised Tubman's extraordinary courage. So does Donald Pinder, president of the Harriet Tubman Organization in Cambridge.

"One of Harriet's quotes was, `I have the right to two things: and that's liberty or death.' Because it's well connected with the times, if she was found out doing the work that she did, her punishment may have been death.

Pinder walks the land, envisioning a future park. His group operates a Tubman museum in downtown Cambridge. For decades, they've pushed at the grassroots level to preserve Tubman's legacy, as have others. Amanda Fenstermaker is Dorchester County's tourism director.

"The general thoughts are that this has been a long time coming. And Harriet Tubman is an American hero. And we're very excited to be her birthplace and be able to really welcome this story and the development of such an innovative place.

Besides being a famous abolitionist, Tubman was a Union nurse and spy during the Civil War. She was also active in the women's suffrage movement and ran a home for the aged. The proposed park would showcase that history for school-children, tourists and others.

"It will have a memorial garden, walking paths, and it will be inter-connected with the Blackwater Wildlife Refuge so they don't have the feeling that they're moving from one organization or property to another. We want to have a campus approach to this initiative.

Cardin and fellow Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski, introduced legislation for a Tubman park in July, along with New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton.

The legislation would establish two national parks: one would span Maryland's Dorchester, Caroline and Talbot counties, which have historical ties to Tubman. Auburn, New York, where Tubman spent her later years, would be the other park site.

There'd also be a state park and visitor's center, bearing Tubman's name. Federal, state and private funding would be needed. Again, Senator Cardin.

"The legislation would authorize $11 million dollars to be used for the visitors center. We already have action by the Senate appropriations committee that will provide a half a million dollars. And we have the state of Maryland coming up with over a million dollars. So we're on our way.

At the Eastern Shore event, the project had everyone talking. Maryland already has a byway that visitors can drive to discover Tubman and the Underground Railroad. But some envision a cottage industry built around her legacy. Marci Ross is with Maryland's Department of Tourism.

And the expectation is that when people come to visit they will go to restaurants and hotels, and want to use outfitters and hike and bike and birdwatch. And do all things connected to the landscape and to Tubman. And from that, and because of that, small businesses can be developed to take advantage of that visitation that's coming.

John Creighton, a local oysterman turned historian, has offered guided Tubman tours for years.

For the first five years that I gave tours for the Harriet Tubman Organization there was never anybody white on the bus but me. And this would involve often 40 to 45 people. They were getting up early in the morning and coming from the Bronx, Brooklyn, from Detroit, coming from Philadelphia, New Jersey.

That's just the beginning, said Marci Ross.

We want to be ready to invite people from across the Eastern Shore, across the state, across the country, and frankly from around the world here to Maryland to discover Tubman. Learn of her life, and her legacy and hopefully carry some of her values and experiences back into their own lives so we make this world a better place.

The National Park Service plans to deliver a study to Congress shortly on the Tubman proposal, and then solicit public input.

There's no firm timetable for completion of the proposed parks. But if all goes as planned, they could open in time for the 100th anniversary of Tubman's death, on March 10th, 2013.

I'm Donna Marie Owens, reporting from the Eastern Shore for 88-1, WYPR
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