Harriet Tubman - Chestertown Spy

Unveiling of New Harriet Tubman Sculpture to Highlight Day of Resilience

August 25, 2022 by Spy Desk

Sculpture with Wesley Wofford

The Fourth Annual Day of Resilience on Sept. 10 will feature a very special and significant highlight – the dedication of the Beacon of Hope, an inspiring, 13-foot bronze sculpture honoring Harriet Tubman in conjunction with the bicentennial of her birth. The event also includes commemorations; round-table discussions on current events and issues; a Harriet Tubman reenactor; song, dance and poetry performances; Underground Railroad Byway tours; and presentations from renowned historians, as well as Tubman’s descendants.

“This historic event is especially noteworthy because Governor Larry Hogan has proclaimed 2022 ‘The Year of Harriet Tubman,’ and our weekend of programming and activities will serve to support and elevate awareness of her legacy and promote greater appreciation of the significant role that she played in Dorchester and U.S. history,” said Adrian Holmes, director of Alpha Genesis Community Development Corporation. “It is especially fitting that the heart of the Day of Resilience this year will be the unveiling of the new, permanent sculpture at the Dorchester County Courthouse honoring one of our own – Harriet Tubman.”

The Day of Resilience commemoration and unveiling ceremony, which is free and open to the public, will begin at noon on Sept. 10 on the Dorchester County Courthouse lawn and will feature Keynote Speaker Samuel C. Still III, a descendant of the famous Civil War Abolitionist William Still, who was proclaimed “The Father of the Underground Railroad” in his obituary in 1902. William Still is credited with helping more than 800 freedom seekers escape slavery.

The new sculpture will be at the location of Tubman’s first rescue – of her niece Kessiah Bowley – and Historian Edduard Prince, who is a descendant of Bowley, also will be speaking during the program. Other featured presenters include Historian Vince Legette, founder and president of the Blacks of the Chesapeake Foundation, whose research and work have focused on the Underground Railroad and on the significant contributions of Black watermen to the maritime and seafood-related industries of the Chesapeake Bay, and sculptor Wesley Wofford, who will discuss his work on the sculpture, which is rich in symbolism that specifically reflects Tubman’s connection to Dorchester County.

Sculpture with Wesley Wofford

The public also is invited to participate in related events that are scheduled throughout the weekend of September 9-11, including:

The Taste of Resilience on Friday at the newly restored Phillips Packing House. The event, beginning at 5 p.m., will kick off the weekend with reflections, a quilt display, food and entertainment.
The Art Awards Ceremony recognizing the students whose winning artwork was inspired by Harriet Tubman. The presentation will be at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday at the Courthouse.
A Drum Processional and Waterside Libations, which will begin with Nana Malaya Rucker-Oparabea leading a walk at 10:45 a.m. on Saturday from the Dorchester Courthouse, down historic High Street to Long Wharf Marina, where ships bearing enslaved persons once docked.
A Souls at Sea land and on-water libation and remembrance ceremony commemorating the lives lost in the waters along the Middle Passage, beginning at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday at Long Wharf Marina.
The Constituency for Africa Ron Brown Townhall Meeting at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday at the Art Bar 2.0. Melvin Foote, CFA founder, will host panelists Ambassador Carlos Dos Santos from The Republic of Mozambique and Ambassador Marie-Hélène Mathey Boo Lowumba, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who will discuss “Mobilizing the Diaspora: Mission Impossible.” The CFA’s mission is to build public and private support for Africa, and to help shape a progressive U.S. policy towards Africa.
A Public Art Panel Discussion, “Telling the Stories of Our Communities,” at 3:30 p.m. at the Dorchester Center for the Arts. Panelists and participants include Wesley Wofford, who created the new Harriet Tubman Sculpture Beacon of Hope; Michael Rosato, who designed the Harriet Tubman Take My Hand mural; Miriam Moran, who designed the Black Lives Matter mural on Cambridge’s Race Street; Bridget Cimino, who designed the new Dorchester Women’s Mural; Sydnei SmithJordan, whose art pieces are a part of the permanent collection with the Harriet Tubman Museum of Cape May, N.J.; and Liesel Fenner, public art director for the Maryland State Arts Council. The panel moderator will be Jon West-Bey, independent curator and museum consultant, who is on the faculty at Johns Hopkins University.
Activities in Downtown Cambridge throughout Saturday afternoon, including a Vendor Market at Cannery Way with food trucks, handmade goods, music and kids’ activities, such as face painting and clay sculpting. Chesapeake College will be hosting their annual crab sale to support the C. Gibson Memorial Scholarship Fund. Free movie screenings at the Escape Room on Race Street will local films revealing the unique history of Cambridge and Dorchester County, including You Don’t Know Nuthin’ ‘Bout Groove City and The Voices of Indiantown, as well as shorts from Dorchester County Tourism.
Jazz at the Mural featuring the Eric Byrd Trio will be begin at 7 p.m. on Saturday at the Harriet Tubman Take My Hand Tickets are required.
An Evening at the Beacon of Hope will present the opportunity for an impromptu gathering at the new sculpture where visitors can share a poem, a song or uplifting words from 7:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Jazz Brunch from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. on Sundayat the Art Bar 2.0. Tickets are required.
Dinner and a play, Harriet Tubman Fights for Freedom, at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday at the Art Bar 2.0. Tickets are required.

For more information about the schedule for the Day of Resilience and the weekend events and for tickets, visit the Alpha Genesis website at alphagenesiscdc.org/day-of-resilience-2022.

The Day of Resilience was first held in 2019 in Cambridge to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. That event received gubernatorial, senatorial and congressional citations and received the Outstanding Heritage Project Award from the Heart of Chesapeake Country Heritage Area. The event has grown every year since then, and in 2020, the observance was highlighted by the unveiling of a traveling sculpture of Harriet Tubman.

Motivated by the community response to the traveling sculpture, Alpha Genesis led the grassroots drive that raised $250,000 to have the permanent Harriet Tubman statue created specifically for Dorchester County.The unveiling celebration marks the culmination of two years of community grassroots fundraising and activities to create and install the permanent sculpture.

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Day of Resilience to Feature Unveiling of New Harriet Tubman Sculpture

June 8, 2022 by Spy Desk

The Fourth Annual Day of Resilience on Sept. 10 will feature a very special and significant highlight – the unveiling of the Beacon of Hope, an inspiring, 13-foot bronze sculpture honoring Harriet Tubman in conjunction with the bicentennial of her birth. Alpha Genesis Community Development Corp., which is organizing the event, is reaching out to the community with opportunities to be a part of this historic occasion.

Rendering Tubman Sculpture

“The heart of the Day of Resilience this year will be the unveiling of the new, permanent sculpture,” said Adrian Holmes, director of Alpha Genesis. “Governor Larry Hogan has proclaimed 2022 ‘The Year of Harriet Tubman,’ and we are planning a weekend of programming and activities that will serve to support and elevate awareness of her legacy and promote greater appreciation of the significant role that she played in Dorchester and U.S. history.

“We are preparing a multi-day program that includes commemorations, reflections, round-table discussions on current events and issues, entertainment, presentations from renowned guest speakers and historians, Underground Railroad Byway tours, a time capsule to mark the occasion, as well as special guests, including Tubman’s descendants.”

Motivated by the community response to the traveling sculpture, Alpha Genesis led the grassroots drive to have the permanent Harriet Tubman statue created specifically for Dorchester County. It will be installed at the Dorchester County Courthouse, a place where enslaved ancestors were auctioned and Tubman’s niece was rescued.

Rendering Tubman Sculpture

The timing for this year’s event – 200 years after Harriet’s birth – presents an extraordinary opportunity for sharing Tubman’s legacy, as well as community involvement. There are several opportunities for individuals, business and organizations to be part of this historic endeavor; however, the deadlines to participate are quickly approaching. Supporters can:

Purchase one of the engraved bricks for the plaza surrounding the statue. Large bricks range in price are $500, $1,000 or $1,500, depending on their proximity to the sculpture, and smaller bricks are also $100 or $200. Large bricks have room for engraving a business or organization’s logo. Bricks must be purchased by July 1. For more information and to purchase visit bricksrus.com/donorsite/harrietsjourneyhome
Be a Day of Resilience Event Sponsor. Silver or Gold sponsors will receive a “Beacon” for their business to display their support, as well as have their business logo featured on signage and in the Day of Resilience program. For more information: alphagenesiscdc.org/
Place an ad in the souvenir, commemorative program book for the Day of Resilience. Program ads are $40 (1/8 page, 3.75” x 2.5”), $75 (quarter page, 3.7”5 x 5”), $150 (half page, 7.5” x 5”), $300 (full page, 7.5”x 10”). Ads must be received by July 10. For more information: alphagenesiscdc.org/
Be a Friend of the Day of Resilience. For $20, supporters will have their names listed on the “Friends” page in the commemorative program book. July 10 is the deadline for donations, which may be sent using Cash App to $AlphaGenesisCDC.
Sponsor the Bike the Underground Railroad, which is raising funds for statue landscaping/maintenance, as well as outreach and education. Sponsor logos will appear on event signage and t-shirts. Logos vary in size depending on the level of support: $100 (or value of in-kind support, such as contributions of food for the event), $250, $500 or $750. For more information: biketheugrr.com/

For more information about Alpha Genesis or the Day of Resilience, visit: alphagenesiscdc.org/

To make a general donation to the sculpture project or Alpha Genesis, visit: alphagenesiscdc-bloom.kindful.com/

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The Spirit of Harriet Tubman at Todd Performing Arts Center

February 20, 2020 by Steve Parks

At 4-foot-10, Harriet Tubman was a giant in spirit, courage, and heroism in the eyes of a little girl in Canada, where so many slaves Tubman rescued found north-of-the-border freedom.

Leslie McCurdy, a native of Windsor, Ontario, across the river from Detroit, didn’t have many historic-figure role models—certainly not many who looked like her. Not until fifth-grade when she first read about Tubman, a runaway slave from Dorchester County who returned south repeatedly to rescue dozens—eventually hundreds—from bondage.

Comparisons to Moses are not clichés. Tubman was the real deal.

“It made such an impression on me—my school was mostly white—that I found reasons on every grade level to do something about Harriet Tubman: Draw a picture, give an oral report, write a term paper,” McCurdy recalls. Following college, she turned to acting after an injury derailed her first artistic ambition—dance. McCurdy wrote a one-woman play, “The Spirit of Harriet Tubman,” which she performs live at Chesapeake College’s Todd Performing Arts Center Saturday evening, Feb. 21.
Taller in physical stature, McCurdy has portrayed Tubman on stage for 23 years, including about four years ago on the Wye Mills campus. “I guess they liked me well enough to invite me back,” she says modestly.

With a little prodding, McCurdy admits she’s often been “overwhelmed by the way people find it such a powerful and inspirational example of one person’s spirit and heroism.”

McCurdy’s source material—she owns the title role, of course—wasn’t easy to come by. “My play is based on words that are said to be her own,” McCurdy says. As a child field slave, Tubman never had the opportunity to learn reading or writing, unlike fellow slave Frederick Douglass, who, transferred from Talbot County to Baltimore as a youngster, became an abolitionist author, orator, and spokesman for enslaved and freed African-Americans.

Life-sized statues of Tubman and Douglass were unveiled at the State House in Annapolis at the start of the 2020 General Assembly session this month.
The statues were news to McCurdy when interviewed by phone on the road before her Chesapeake College show this weekend. But she has explored other local sites from Tubman’s life as a slave as well as others in Underground Railroad “depots” in Canada. At first, Tubman and those she rescued just needed to make it north of the Mason-Dixon Line. But renewed enforcement of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act, rewarding the return of runaway slaves, lengthened the final Underground Railroad destination all the way to St. Catherine’s, Ontario, and other Canadian border towns.

“In some ways, Harriet was better known in Canada than in the States,” McCurdy says, citing Tubman’s image on the Canada $10 bill. Her picture was to replace President Andrew Jackson’s this year on the U.S. $20 bill. However, President Trump nixed that idea. Sooner or later, his unilateral decision likely will be overturned. But that’s another story.

In addition to “The Spirit of Harriet Tubman,” McCurdy also performs an abridged version for younger audiences—grades K-through-2.
Tubman isn’t the only black heroine McCurdy celebrates in live performance. She also does a one-woman show about another Maryland native, Billie Holiday, who she describes as a “race woman and artist.”

“People focus on her drug addiction,” says McCurdy. “But she was also a woman of conviction for just causes.” Or opposition to terribly unjust causes, such as lynching. Holiday ignored those who discouraged her from performing the song, “Strange Fruit,” which refers to black bodies hanging from trees that also produce apples, for instance, or, particularly in the South, peaches.

McCurdy personally met Rosa Parks, the Alabama woman who refused to surrender her seat on a municipal bus to a white passenger. Parks (no known relation to this writer) is among those McCurdy honors in her show, “Things My Fore-Sisters Said.” She once accompanied Parks to Underground Railroad sites in Canada. Now, other stops along the “railroad” are traced in Dorchester and Caroline counties, plus parts of Delaware.

McCurdy recalls visiting the country store in Bucktown, near Cambridge, where slave-girl Tubman was assaulted by a white man who cracked her skull with a hurled stone. The recent movie release “Harriet,” to which McCurdy takes some exception, depicts her injury as a source of clairvoyance. “That diminishes her intelligence and smarts,” McCurdy says, in eluding those who’d capture her and fellow refugees.

It may be easier to dismiss Billie Holiday’s anti-Jim Crow politics, owing to drug/alcohol abuse, or even Rosa Parks’ impertinence in the eyes of unrepentant segregationists. But Tubman, who lived to 90 or 91—slaves were robbed even of recorded birthdates—led Union soldiers to free slaves in Confederate states and, later, helped the aged and advocated women’s suffrage.

Tubman was and remained an unapproachable savior on the right side of history.

Take it from Leslie McCurdy: “Harriet’s been my hero since I was ten years old.”

Happy Black History Month. McCurdy does two shows a week each February. The dedicated month could hardly be better celebrated.

The Spirit of Harriet Tubman

Todd Performing Arts Center, Chesapeake College, Wye Mills Friday, Feb. 21, 7 p.m. Tickets: $20, $10 for children 10 and younger 410-827-5867

Steve Parks is a retired journalist and theater critic now living in Easton.

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Sculptures of Tubman, Douglass Debut at Emotional State House Ceremony

February 11, 2020 by Maryland Matters

After years of planning, bronze statues of abolitionists and former Maryland slaves Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman were unveiled to members of the General Assembly and other dignitaries in the State House Monday evening.

“A mark of true greatness is shining light on a system of oppression and having the courage to change it,” said House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County) at the grand unveiling. “The statues are a reminder that our laws aren’t always right or just, but there’s always room for improvement.”

The 500-pound bronze sculptures that now grace the Old House Chamber stand life-sized: Douglass, depicted at 46 years old, stands at 6 feet, and Tubman, 42, just under 5 feet.

The hyper-realistic statues are largely based off of historical photography and intend to be representative of how Tubman and Douglass would have looked on Nov. 1, 1864 — the day that Maryland abolished legal slavery, a provision of the state Constitution that was officially adopted in the room where they are now on view.

Douglass’ hands were modeled after his own great-great-grandson, Ken Morris, who was present at the dedication along with a half dozen other descendants of the two abolitionist icons.

A statue of Harriet Tubman gazes into the Old House Chamber at the Maryland State House. Photo by Danielle E. Gaines

The scene as it’s laid out in the Old House Chamber is fictitious: Neither of the two noteworthy Marylanders was in the room as slavery was ended.

According to the Maryland State Archives, Tubman at that time was a fugitive slave working with the Union Army, whose acts of resistance up to that point had led to the emancipation of hundreds of slaves.

Douglass delivered a speech in Baltimore a little over two weeks after its ratification, but had not been in the state since he fled captivity in 1838. He ultimately made an appearance in the State House in 1874.

“These powerful, beautiful and incredibly moving works of art will serve as a reminder of just how far we have come,” said Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr (R), “and may they also inspire us to focus on the hard work that still lies ahead.”

In the gallery with the newly-installed sculptures is a placard bearing an excerpt from an 1868 letter to Tubman from Douglass. Jones read his correspondence to her fellow lawmakers:

“…The difference between us is very marked. Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public, and I have received much encouragement at every step of the way,” she read. “You, on the other hand, have labored in a private way. I have wrought in the day — you in the night.”

The Frederick Douglass statue in Annapolis stands at just more than 6-feet tall, a representation of Douglass’ actual height, which historians gleaned from historical articles of clothing. Photo by Danielle E. Gaines.

Legacy of Slavery in Maryland Director Christopher Haley said that the decision to place the two figures at the State House in Annapolis is “right and proper” given the city’s history.

“In a State House where [the] General Assembly was made up … of representatives who passed laws that kept people enslaved, here’s the same body — here’s the same place where they were freed,” said Haley, grandson of the late “Roots” author Alex Haley.

The process of getting these sculptures in place was long-fought. Senate President Emeritus Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) and late House speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) had proposed the addition of the sculptures to the State House Trust in 2016.

Busch died in April 2019. His absence was noted by Deputy State Archivist Elaine Rice Bachman.

“It is so regrettable that Mike Busch is not here with us tonight to finally see the statues,” she said, “and so very gratifying that Mike Miller is.”

Miller relinquished his long-held position as Senate president in late 2019. He had not seen the sculptures before their unveiling.

The Board of Public Works voted unanimously last year to move forward with the project but voiced some concerns about the choice to go with the Brooklyn-based StudioEIS — the sculptures’ fabrication company — rather than pursuing a Maryland-based contract.

StudioEIS also fabricated the sculpture of President George Washington and noteworthy Annapolitan Mary “Molly” Ridout on view in the old Senate chamber. The Maryland Archives said that they recommended the company because they wanted it to appear as though the four pieces had been produced concurrently.

In his address to fellow lawmakers, Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) said that the state was taking a step forward in finally giving representation to the numerous people who helped to build it who for so long had gone unrecognized.

He closed with an excerpt from the speech that Douglass delivered in Baltimore in 1864:

“You are no longer a border slave State, vexed between two extremes, enduring the evils of slavery,” Ferguson read, “but a central Free State, destined, in my opinion, to become morally and politically, as you are geographically, the keystone State of the Union.”

By Hannah Gaskill

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