She Came to Slay - Book Review

June 19, 2021 

Today, June 19th, we celebrate the anniversary of the freedom of the enslaved Blacks from slavery and oppression.

What better way to celebrate this day than to talk about Harriet Tubman, the American abolitionist who escaped slavery and managed to bring over 70 enslaved folks, including her parents and siblings, to Canada, on foot.

'She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman', written by Historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar, is an informative biography that details the life of Harriet Tubman in a way it's never been heard or read before, narrating her time as a slave, her escape, and her resilience to free her people.

This woman was bold, ambitious, resilient. She would let nothing stop her, not even her bouts of seizures that came on her randomly and left her unconscious for hours. These seizures began when she had a hard hit on her head that cracked her skull and left her bleeding and almost dead. She was left to die with no aid or help, and in spite of her injuries, she was still expected to continue her duties as a slave to her owner. Through all of that, she survived, pushed on, held on to her faith, and determined to get out of the evil bondage called slavery.

She managed to escape all the way to Canada, with the help of the Underground Railroad (a secret network of abolitionlists), and after settling herself, she made plans to return for her folks, for she felt her freedom meant little if the rest of her family and black folks were still enslaved. She felt she had been called by God to free her people from slavery, so she went back. Back and forth she traveled, on foot, and came back to Canada with more free black folks.

Harriet became the first woman -- black or white -- to plan and lead an armed military expedition during the civil war. She was a spy, an advocate, and a suffrage.

If activists and abolitionists like Harriet hadn't pushed back against slavery and, years later, against segregation, slavery would likely still have continued until this day, and blacks and whites would still have been brazenly separated today.

Harriet was a true inspiration, and she cannot be talked about enough. She is known as the Moses of her day, literally freeing her people from Pharaohs and advocating for their rights.

Indeed, Harriet Tubman 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘺.

Happy Juneteenth!