This is part of WTOP’s continuing coverage of people making a difference from our community authored by Stephanie Gaines-Bryant. Read more of that coverage.
She was considered the conductor of the Underground Railroad. Now, a local group wants young people to walk the steps of the great abolitionist Harriet Tubman in Maryland.
The Wisdom Walkers are hosting the Harriet Tubman Museum Tour and Historic Walk on Saturday, Oct. 7 and Sunday, Oct. 8 in Tubman’s birthplace of Cambridge, Maryland.
Sharon Robinson Goods is an executive director of the Wisdom Walkers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to African American health and education. Goods told WTOP that the group will consist of approximately three dozen people and some college students.
She said the group wanted to take young people to experience the Tubman walk “because of her incredible courage, her incredible foresight and her incredible willingness to put herself — her physical body at risk to advocate for our people.”
Participants will visit historic sites led by tour company Harriet Tubman Tours, an African American-owned and operated business.
The sites include Tubman’s childhood home, Brodess Farm and Bucktown General Store where Tubman was struck in the head with a two-pound iron scale weight thrown by an overseer for not helping him punish another slave.
All the locations center on Tubman, who escorted over 70 enslaved people to freedom during approximately 13 trips back to slave states after her escape to Philadelphia in 1849. In addition to the tour, Goods said the trip will include 5-7 miles of walking each day, including a trek through the Underground Railroad National Park and byways.
For more information on how to sponsor a student or participate in the event, call Wisdom Walkers at 202-494-5338. Harriet Tubman Tour Company, which organizes the tours, can be reached online or by calling 866-642-7742.
