Harriet Tubman was passionately committed to her faith. She had dreams and visions where God spoke to her and gave her strength. She didn’t believe that slaves’ role was to be obedient. Instead, she looked to the story of the Exodus, the call from slavery to freedom, the hand of God powerfully involved in human history. When she escaped from slavery herself in 1849, she was guided by the conductors of the Underground Railroad. When she made it to freedom in Philadelphia, she described it this way: “When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields and I felt like I was in Heaven.”1
Tubman was not content to simply enjoy her freedom. She worked to free as many other slaves as she could – dozens, maybe hundreds of others. She saw herself as a, “stranger in a strange land” in Philadelphia and fervently believed, “I was free, and they should be free.”2 As she became known for her bravery and commitment to liberty, people started to call her Moses, the Moses of her people. It was her faith that helped keep her strong, gave her the confidence to keep going, helped her to believe that God would keep her safe. She used spirituals to communicate with escaped slaves while they were along the way. Once the former slaves stepped over the line into freedom, she said, “Glory to God and Jesus, too. One more soul is safe!”3
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.