Every
Dream Needs a Dreamer
“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.”
Harriett
Tubman
Harriett
Tubman was born in 1820, a slave, in Maryland. As a child, she was
beaten and hit on the head with a heavy metal object that caused
brain damage. As a result she had seizures, headaches, and strong,
vivid dreams and visions she took to be revelations from God. She
escaped from slavery, fled to Philadelphia and joined the
abolitionist and humanitarian movement. During the Civil War, she
became a Union spy and made more than thirteen missions to rescue
other slaves by way of the underground railroad and safe-houses.
During the war she also worked, first, as cook and battlefield nurse,
and later, as an armed scout. She was the first woman to lead an
armed expedition, guiding the Combahee River Raid that liberated more
than seven-hundred slaves. After the war, she worked in the Women's
Suffrage movement in New York state. She died at the age of 93, seven
years before women got the vote.
If
ever anyone was born to be a victim, it was Harriett Tubman, and yet
she used her passion and determination, her intelligence and
resourcefulness, to free herself and change the lives of hundreds of
people. She dedicated her life, in spite of being disabled, to a
cause that she loved so much it compelled her into danger time and
again. She is an historical figure we don't hear enough
about---perhaps because she was black and female.
Do
we still have the grace and grit to be like Harriett Tubman and rise
above the circumstances of our birth and handicaps? Can we begin to
see that our responsibility in life is to work together for the
greater good? I believe that we can, and we must if we are going to
continue to be one nation, under God. We must discover within us the 'Tubman resolve', the starch to do what we can, and the courage
to allow our dreams to guide us.
In
the spirit,
Jane
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