It’s Black History Month, and I would like to start this month with a portrait of the woman I admire the most.
Harriet Tubman was born into slavery. From her childhood, she was beaten by the various slave owners. She suffered a traumatic head wound that affected her life. She had pain, dizziness all her life. Despite all of this, she escaped to Philadelphia and RETURNED to rescue her family! After that, Tubman returned many times more to rescue others. She was traveling at night and had her strategy. Tubman never lost a passenger.
During the Civil War, she worked for the Union Army. Tubman started as a cook and nurse, and later on as an armed scout and spy. Harriet Tubman became the first woman to lead an armed expedition during the war. She guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than 700 enslaved people.
Tubman is the woman who was a fighter, the woman who did not keep her head down as she was told and forced to do. She was fighting for human rights, for equality, for freedom. It was dangerous and painful, BUT she did it! She said, “I would fight for my liberty so long as my strength lasted, and if the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.”
Harriet Tubman is my hero. She stood for the right things, and she believed in them. In so many situations, it’s not easy to do. Even when it is not easy, even when we are not sure how we can do this, we MUST try. As Tubman said, “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.” It doesn’t matter how tired we are, and it doesn’t matter how many times people showed us the place they think we need to stay at; we MUST fight for human rights, for woman rights, for equality for everyone! Never say “I can’t”, because you are strong and you CAN. Harriet Tubman did show us that we can do it all!!!
P.S. I hope that one day we will not celebrate Black History for only one month. I hope we will celebrate it every day. I know we can do it. Harriet Tubman said, “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”
I painted a portrait of Harriet Tubman in Adobe Illustrator on iPad
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