03/10/2026
As we celebrate Harriet Tubman's fierceness, creativity, courage, and faith on her birthday today, may we remember her in her entirety--not only as the indomitable conductor who led so many people to safety and freedom, but also the organizer, the spy, the suffragist; the mother, the matriarch, the landowner, the place of solace for older adults in her community.
May we honor her legacy by continuing to build communities where every human has dignity and sovereignty over their own life, thriving in the safety and autonomy that is everyone's birthright. May we continue to advocate for a world without violence, a place where children can go to bed with full bellies and a peaceful, fear-free sleep.
May we work together beyond imaginary boundaries and made-up differences, leaning into our humanness and care for one another, remembering that we are more alike than we are different, that this home is home to us all, and that we all deserve the safe community we long to build.
Harriet Tubman knew it was in her reach. She had faith in her work, even when it seemed impossible. May we carry that faith today as we continue the fight.
“I have heard their groans and sighs, and seen their tears, and I would give every drop of blood in my veins to free them.” --Harriet Tubman
This is what freedom looked like after the war — not a battlefield, but a front porch.
Around 1887, a photograph captured something rare and sacred: Harriet Tubman standing at her home in Auburn, New York — not as a fugitive, not as a wartime scout, not as a whispered legend — but as the matriarch of a household she built with her own hands.
She stands on the left in the image. Beside her is Gertie Davis, the young girl she and her husband adopted. Seated nearby is her second husband, Nelson Davis. Others in the photograph are believed to be boarders or relatives — part of the extended community that flowed through Tubman’s home.
Look at that image closely.
This is the woman who escaped slavery in 1849.
The woman who returned again and again — risking her life to lead others north along the Underground Railroad.
The woman who later served as a scout, nurse, and spy for Union forces during the Civil War.
And yet here she is — on a porch. Grounded. Rooted. Home.
Born Araminta Ross in the early 1820s in Maryland, Tubman knew bo***ge intimately. She carried the physical scars of enslavement, including a traumatic head injury that caused seizures throughout her life. But even that did not stop her. Before the war, she made at least thirteen documented missions back into slaveholding territory, guiding dozens to freedom.
After the war, she did something equally radical.
She chose to build.
In Auburn, she purchased land and established a permanent residence. It became more than a house. It was refuge. It was gathering place. It was strategy room. It was sanctuary.
In 1869, she married Nelson Davis — a formerly enslaved man from North Carolina who had enlisted in the 8th United States Colored Infantry Regiment in 1863. Like many Black soldiers, he fought not only for the Union, but for the full meaning of emancipation. After the war, he settled in Auburn, working and building a life alongside Tubman.
Their union represented something profound: two people once enslaved, now choosing each other freely.
In 1874, five years into their marriage, they adopted a daughter, Gertie. That choice, too, speaks volumes. Tubman had spent her early adulthood rescuing others’ children. Now she mothered again — intentionally, lovingly.
But freedom did not erase hardship.
Nelson Davis’s health declined in his later years. Tuberculosis weakened him, and steady employment became difficult. He died on October 14, 1888 — just about a year after the photograph was taken.
That image, then, becomes even more precious.
It captures a fleeting chapter: Tubman as wife, adoptive mother, landowner, community anchor.
Before Nelson, there had been John Tubman, the man she married in slavery. When she escaped in 1849, he did not follow. When she returned to Maryland to rescue others, she learned he had remarried. That chapter closed quietly. Freedom sometimes demands leaving even what you love.
And yet, Harriet Tubman kept loving.
In her later years, she remained active in humanitarian work and civil rights causes. She advocated for women’s suffrage. She established the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged on her property — ensuring that formerly enslaved elders would have dignity in their final days.
The porch in that 1887 photograph is not accidental.
For Black Americans in the late 19th century, a porch represented arrival. Stability. Ownership. Visibility. It meant: We are here. We endured. And we built something that cannot be auctioned away.
Harriet Tubman is often remembered in motion — crossing rivers at night, pistol at her side, guiding trembling souls northward.
But this image reminds us of another truth:
She didn’t just lead people to freedom.
She created a life within it.
From Araminta Ross to General Tubman.
From fugitive to homeowner.
From conductor to caretaker.
And on that Auburn porch, surrounded by family and neighbors, we see not only a legend —
We see a woman who survived enough to finally sit down.
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