WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE YESTERDAY, MUST BE DONE TODAY FOR TOMORROW
On March 10, I spoke at Philadelphia’s City Hall alongside Congressman Brendan Boyle and Mayor Jim Kenney for Philadelphia’s celebration of the life of Harriett Tubman—the beloved abolitionist, Underground Railroad conductor, entrepreneur, and my personal guiding light.
Ironically, all the walls of the room at City Hall were adorned with portraits of historical figures deemed worthy of the high honor of recognition—none of whom looked like myself or Harriett Tubman.
The assembly at City Hall was the culmination of two months of city-wide celebrations of Tubman’s life and legacy which coincided with a traveling statue of Tubman sculpted by Wesley Wofford, that was moving from state to state for $2000 a month. The event was designed by the Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy to highlight a permanent statue for Harriett that would soon be built in our city by Wofford. Which needs another op-ed completely.
Tubman’s legacy — her repeated trips to the south to rescue enslaved people, her time on the Combohee River, her work as a spy and a scout for the Union Army, and the less familiar fight that she had with the United States government for a pension that she never received for a war this country might not have won without her — is worth celebrating.
The packed room of Philadelphians was elated about this statue. Folks were clapping and snapping pictures and at the end there was even a reception with cupcakes as folks celebrated Harriett Tubman's birthday.
However I arrived at the event dressed in all black and a veil because although we will never know Harriett Tubman’s birthday (because she was born into a country that categorized her as less than human), what we know for sure is March 10, 1913 is the day she died.
Just a few days prior I found myself frustrated to tears and had to pull over in my car to scream out loud after being told by the mayor and the congressman’s team that I would not be given time to speak at this event and that standing in front of the room would be two well meaning politicians instead.
I could not process the generational rage at this gesture without calling other “Harrietts” for support. After my near breakdown, my sister contacted Congressman Boyle's office and invited them to see how ironic it would be for him to stand before a crowd of Harrietts and tell us they were announcing the Harriett Tubman Day Act (HR 7013) accepted into Congress, while having the woman who'd been helping to organize the effort on the ground, the one who brought the idea to the congressman in the first place, not be invited to share. Both offices would later apologize for the apparent oversight. I accepted their sincere apologies. Congressman Boyle introduced me and gave me his time to speak.
It was important to me to speak not because I like standing in front of crowds, because I do not. It was important because I had a feeling that what happened was what would happen, that folks would gather to pay homage to Tubman’s legacy while white washing the purpose of her work. That folks would yet again take the possibility of a holy day set aside for grieving the atrocities of slavery, and creating a plan for how to begin the process of repairing that harm and turn it into a chance to party with cupcakes, shucking, and jiving, high fiving, re-enactments and songs. That we’d celebrate not actual policy change, but yet another symbolic victory. Why not build a statue after an actual social win? After a measurable change occurs? After a drastic decrease in the city’s homicides for instance, after a decrease in the city’s poverty level or homelessness? After getting the Harriett Tubman Day Act approved, even.
1.8 million of my ancestors died during the middle passage from Africa to the Americas. Thousands of my ancestors were accosted and then bought into Philadelphia’s port at Penns Landing in chains to be sold into slavery. Thousands died toiling the soil that brought the industry of cotton and sugar to this city. Not to mention the 40,000 who died during the Civil War. Or the 6500 who were lynched after so-called emancipation. And no number is available to account for the lives traumatically affected for generations as a result of slavery’s unwarranted hate and harm.
My great great grandmother, Lula Styles, recalled being made to eat out of a pig trough. My great great grandfather, Washington Reese recalled coming to this country on a boat in chains, yet folks think we need another day for cupcakes, another day for picnics and fireworks, or even worse, another opportunity for corporate America to swoop in and commodify a date so folks can buy cheaply made tee shirts and bandanas with cool slogans created by modern day slaves? NO!
I did get three minutes at the event to say so. At that time I shared that some things, some people get to be sacred. So no Harriett Tubman Day should not and will not be another day for pretending everything is ok. We have enough days for that. It is not simply a day off from work. We have enough days for that. What we don't have in this country, in this world, is a day for mourning the effects of the special brand of chattel slavery that happened on this soil and implementing solutions for how to reckon with that. We don't have a collective day to create proper redress for the continued atrocities inflicted on my ancestors (and their descendants).
Everything is not ok. So we must grieve. Grieving is a healthy response to loss that, when done well eventually leads to the ability to move on to the next phase—redress. The lack of looking back, of sitting in the fire as some people say, is what has caused decades of denial and anger and racial tension. The type of anger that bubbles over into riots because it continues to go unaddressed. We need a collective mourning ritual to mark the losses suffered by our community and its members and an opportunity to decide how best to move forward. Harriett Tubman Day is just the beginning of a ritual that needs to be designed and led by the communities who are most affected by the harm and everyone else gets to respect and mourn alongside us for the deep sadness that comes from benefiting from someone else’s enslavement.
And finally the question I get asked most now that the Harriett Tubman Day Act has entered into congress is when is the vote? And that is the question I cannot answer. But I think the question raises a great point, how is it that some bills get kicked around Congress for years while others get passed overnight? How is it that some legislation moves fast and some so slow? Is it legislative oppression? Legislative neglect? For instance, lynching being made into a federal hate crime 100 hundred years after Ida B. Wells’ (another of our guiding light ancestors) said it needed to be is both beautiful and disturbing.
So with that in mind, we cannot wait 100 years to start this process. We are asking those who can, to physically write their congressperson and let them know you support HR 7013 for Harriett Tubman Day and remember to add the measurable request—we’d like to see this bill passed by or before March 10, 2023. Send us photo of your letter to info@harriettsbookshop.com to be published in an upcoming book. Ase.
Jeannine A. Cook is shopkeeper at Harriett’s Books in Philly and Ida’s Books in Collingswood. A version of this op-ed appeared in the Inquirer.