0:00 March tenth, 1857.0:01 Just another date, until you find it written on a piece of brittle, folded paper, tucked inside a book where it doesn't belong.0:13 Last week, Admin, we talked about how history isn't just in textbooks—it's hidden in the margins, in forgotten books.0:23 I never thought I'd be the one to find something like this.0:29 I was at an estate sale, digging through a dusty box of old religious books.0:36 And inside a worn-out hymnal, this single page fell out.0:41 The handwriting is… determined.0:44 And the first line just stops your heart.0:47 I have to read this to you.0:50 March tenth, 1857.0:51 My bones ache with a cold that has nothing to do with the winter.0:57 It is the cold of fear.0:59 But my spirit is warm.1:01 The Lord has delivered them.1:04 My father, Ben.1:05 My mother, Rit.1:07 They are free.1:08 For days, we moved only under the cover of night.1:12 The wagon wheels groaned like an old man in pain.1:17 Every sound, every snap of a twig, was a patrol.1:21 A slave catcher.1:23 A betrayal.1:24 My father is near seventy years of age.1:27 My mother, older still.1:29 Their bodies are frail, but their spirits… their spirits are forged from the same steel that made me.1:39 I had to get them out.1:41 Father was a free man by law, had been since 1840.1:45 He’d bought my mother’s freedom himself.1:49 But freedom on paper is not freedom in the flesh, not in Maryland.1:55 Not with the Fugitive Slave Act turning every white man into a potential kidnapper, paid in silver to drag you back to hell.2:06 They said Father was in danger of arrest, for helping others find their way north.2:14 The law would not have seen an old man helping the desperate.2:19 It would have seen a piece of property acting out of turn.2:24 So I went back.2:26 I carried two chickens with me.2:29 A simple trick.2:30 When you see someone who might be suspicious, you pull the string on their legs, and they squawk and flutter.2:40 People look at the chickens.2:42 They see a silly woman on an errand.2:46 They don't see a conductor on the Lord's railroad.2:50 They don't see Moses.2:52 There were moments I thought we would fail.2:56 My mother’s breath was shallow in the cold air.3:00 My father’s cough echoed in the woods.3:04 I laid my hands on them and prayed.3:07 I didn't pray for our safety.3:10 I listened for the voice of God.3:12 He does not speak in thunder.3:15 He speaks in the quiet, in the certainty that you must take the NEXT step.3:22 And then the one after that.3:24 He told me which way to turn the wagon.3:28 He told me which house would offer a hidden cellar and a warm bowl of soup.3:35 Thomas Garrett in Wilmington… he is a true friend to our people.3:41 He arranged the final passage.3:43 The last leg of the journey was the hardest.3:47 Into Canada.3:48 Over the Suspension Bridge near Niagara Falls.3:53 I cannot write what it felt like to see the water churning below.3:59 To feel the boards tremble under the weight of the wagon.4:04 And then… to be on the other side.4:07 My mother looked at me.4:09 She did not weep.4:10 She just… breathed.4:12 A full breath.4:13 The kind you can only take when the air you are breathing is TRULY yours.4:20 My father, who had been silent for miles, put his hand on my arm.4:26 He said my name.4:28 Araminta.4:28 Not Harriet.4:29 Araminta.4:30 My birth name.4:32 It was as if he was seeing me for the first time.4:36 The daughter he thought he had lost.4:39 I have brought seventy souls out of bondage.4:43 But these two… these two are my own.4:47 My beginning.4:48 Tonight, they sleep in a bed, and no one can claim them in the morning.4:54 I never ran my train off the track.4:57 And I never lost a passenger.5:00 Tonight, I brought my parents home.5:03 Can you believe that, Admin?5:06 She called herself Araminta.5:08 Her birth name.5:10 We all know the legend of Harriet Tubman.5:13 They called her "General Tubman." They called her "Moses." She made thirteen trips into the south, rescuing around seventy people.5:25 She was a spy for the Union Army.5:28 A force of nature.5:30 But this… this is different.5:32 This is the voice of a daughter.5:35 The context makes it even more incredible.5:39 Her father, Ben Ross, was a free man.5:43 But he was at risk of being arrested for helping a group of eight freedom seekers escape.5:51 The very law that was supposed to protect citizens was a weapon against him.5:58 So Harriet’s most famous rescue, the one for her own parents, wasn't just about freeing them from slavery—it was about rescuing them from the injustice of the law itself.6:13 And that journey was so dangerous.6:16 They were old.6:17 They were frail.6:19 It was winter.6:20 She couldn't move fast.6:22 She had to use misdirection, like those chickens she mentioned.6:28 She had to rely on her network, on people like the Quaker abolitionist Thomas Garrett.6:36 They didn't stay in Canada.6:38 After ensuring their safety, Harriet brought them back to the United States, settling them in a small home in Auburn, New York.6:50 She bought the property with help from Frances Seward, the wife of the senator, William H.6:58 Seward.6:59 It was there, in that little house, that her parents lived out the rest of their days in peace.7:07 As free people.7:09 She said, "I was a stranger in a strange land… my home, after all, was down in Maryland, because my father, my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and friends were there.7:24 But I was free, and THEY should be free." She didn't just want freedom for herself.7:31 She wanted it for her own.7:34 To think of her, not as a monument, but as a daughter, terrified but resolute, guiding a rickety wagon through the dark.7:45 Her mission wasn't just an act of historical rebellion.7:50 It was an act of profound, personal love.
