Mrs. McKinnon will be focusing on the Black Migration in the unit she is preparing for her second grade class. To supplement her lesson, I will use the film Harriet Tubman, from the Black Women of Achievement Series as well as a cartoon version called Brittany meets Harriet Tubman.
The first film is on the documentary level and will be more educational than entertaining. The second film features a young black girl who dreams her way into an adventure on the Underground Railroad with the great Harriet Tubman. Though it is perhaps a little less realistic than the first film, it nevertheless will interest the students who were unable to assimilate all the information imparted by the documentary. A good exercise would be to compare and contrast the films. We will also read several biographies to introduce this woman who was one of the first to show the Black people in the South that there was hope for them in the North. This unit can be viewed as a “prequel” to the unit on the Black Migration.
Around 1820, Harriet Tubman was born in Maryland, as Araminta Ross, a third generation slave. She was commonly called Harriet after her mother. She watched her siblings get “sold down the river” and vowed not to experience the same fate. She was rented out to neighbors and once unsuccessfully ran away. Another time, she suffered a head injury when she witnessed a contretemps between a slave and an overseer and was hit by a heavy weight. As a result, she suffered from a form of narcoplexy for the rest of her life. This was not a good thing for someone on the run most of the time. Her father taught her about the woods, perhaps in preparation for the day she would flee.
Harriet married a free man named John Tubman and lived with him in his cabin, despite the fact that she was still owned by someone else. She could not convince him to try to run away, so one night, after hearing that she might be sold, Harriet left on her quest for freedom. Soon she was transported to Philadelphia on the Underground Railroad. She returned South several times, despite the risks, to bring family members North. Her husband had remarried and could not be persuaded to leave his home. In all, she made about 19 trips and saved about 300 people. She would threaten to kill anyone who wanted to turn back on one of her rescue missions, feeling that anyone who returned to their homes in the South could jeopardize the runaways.
The Fugitive Slave Act, passed as a compromise between the South and North, dictated that all runaways slaves should be returned to the South. In return, California was allowed to be a free state. Knowing this, Harriet moved on to Canada. Around 1858, she began speaking at anti-slavery rallies, sometimes falling asleep as she spoke. She also worked as a nurse, scout, cook and an army spy in the Civil War. After the war, with the slavery issue more or less resolved, she became a spokeswoman for the suffragist movement. She spent the last days of her life in upstate New York and used her own home and money to set up an old-age facility for the sick and elderly.
Why was Harriet Tubman called Moses? Because on her trips North, she led the runaways in songs and one of her favorites was about Moses, who led slaves out of Egypt.
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Go down, Moses
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Way down in Egypt land
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Tell old Pharaoh
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Let my people go
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We will read about and discuss the life of Harriet Tubman. We will talk about the brave things she did and make a map of the states she traveled though on her “Railroad.” We can also read Sweet Clara and the freedom quilt by Deborah Hopkinson. This tells the story of a young slave who dreams of being free. The other slaves on her plantation tell her of landmarks on the Underground Railroad and she stitches these into a quilt. Eventually, with all the markings memorized, she gets the chance to escape and, like Harriet Tubman, makes her way to freedom.
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