[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 49 (Wednesday, March 20, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2464-S2465]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                        HARRIET TUBMAN DAY 2024

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, as we celebrate the history and 
contributions of women this month, I rise today to commemorate the 
legacy of one of our Nation's--and my beloved State of Maryland's--most 
iconic figures, Harriet Tubman.
  Congress began officially recognizing March 10 as Harriet Tubman Day 
in 1990, and I am always grateful to speak to her accomplishments. 
Throughout her life, she served as an abolitionist, solider, spy, and 
most famously, as a conductor on the Underground Railroad.
  I would like to reflect on her contributions to human rights, civil 
rights, and women's rights in our Nation and to renew my commitment to 
addressing the shameful legacy of slavery in Maryland and across the 
U.S.
  Harriet Tubman was born Araminta Ross to enslaved parents in 
Bucktown, MD, in 1822. After emancipating herself, she dedicated her 
life to the advancement of freedom and the fight against slavery. 
Araminta adopted the name ``Harriet'' at the time of her marriage to 
John Tubman, a free Black man, around the year 1844.
  Tubman and her husband continued to live in Dorchester County until 
her escape from slavery in 1849, at the age of 27. She would 
courageously return to make over 13 dangerous trips to lead nearly 70 
enslaved people seeking freedom, repeatedly risking her life in pursuit 
of our Nation's highest aspirational ideal.
  Tubman became known as the ``Moses of her people'' by African-
Americans and White abolitionists. She was perhaps the most famous and 
most important conductor in the network of resistance known as the 
Underground Railroad.
  Harriet Tubman's legacy extends past the Underground Railroad.
  During the Civil War, Harriet Tubman served the Union Army, tending 
to wounded soldiers as a nurse and scouting into Confederate territory 
as a spy. She helped orchestrate the Combahee River raid in South 
Carolina that freed over 700 enslaved men, women, and children. After 
the war's end, Harriet focused her efforts on women's suffrage. In 
1896, she was one of the first guest speakers for the National 
Association of Colored Women. She also established one of the first 
incorporated homes for aged African-Americans. In 1903, she bequeathed 
the home to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Auburn, NY.
  Harriet Tubman made an indelible impact on my State and our Nation's 
history, and I am proud to have played a role in memorializing her 
story to future generations. I worked to secure the authorities and 
funding for the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway, which tells 
the story of her life in Dorchester and Caroline Counties, and for the 
Harriet Tubman Underground National Historical Park.
  The National Park Service administers the national historical park 
created by Congress in December 2014 and the national monument 
authorized by President Obama in 2013 as a single unit and works in 
partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the 
Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, and the State of Maryland, which 
owns and comanages the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor 
Center, to commemorate and interpret Tubman's remarkable story. 
Visitors can access the marshlands, largely preserved since her time, 
at the visitor center and nearby refuge.
  This year commemorates the seventh anniversary of the opening of the 
Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center, which welcomed its 
first visitors in 2017. In its inaugural year, it surpassed 
expectations by attracting nearly 100,000 visitors from across the 
United States and over 70 countries. Within the visitor center, 
visitors encounter exhibits recounting Tubman's remarkable journey, set 
amidst landscapes and waterways meticulously preserved to reflect the 
environment she experienced over two centuries ago as an enslaved 
child, young woman, and seeker of freedom. The visitor center serves as 
an orientation hub to the national monument and historical park and an 
entry point to the expansive Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Scenic 
Byway.
  Along this route lie significant sites such as the Brodess Farm, 
where Tubman spent her childhood, the Bucktown General Store, where she 
defiantly resisted her captors as a young girl, and various other 
locations integral to the Underground Railroad in Dorchester, Talbot, 
and Caroline Counties.
  The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park 
centers her life's work not in physical structures, but instead through 
the landscape in Tubman's native Dorchester County, which we must 
defend against the social and ecological hazards of climate change. 
While climate change is a global issue, it is felt on a local scale. 
Dorchester County's low-lying landscape of tidal marshes, narrow 
peninsulas, and country roads linking isolated communities is 
threatened by sea level rise and land subsidence.
  Over half of the county lies in the 100-year floodplain, much of it 
in the tidal floodplain; even minor storms and routine high-tide events 
can flood vast portions of the county. In addition to flooding, 
saltwater intrusion threatens the failure of rural septic systems and 
damage to roads, bridges, and other critical infrastructure.
  Climate-driven changes to the coastal ecosystem are also making it 
harder to earn a living through the primary local sources of income: 
agriculture, forestry, and the seafood industry. Local communities are 
at the frontline of adaptation, and initial social inequality causes 
the disadvantaged groups in those communities to suffer 
disproportionately from the adverse effects of climate change, 
resulting in greater subsequent inequality. Dorchester County is no 
exception. After the Civil War, freedmen and women settled the land, 
which was often less arable and, therefore, more affordable. Today, the 
county has a population of 32,000, 26 percent of whom are Black. Black 
individuals are almost twice as likely to be unemployed or live below 
the Federal poverty level as their White neighbors, attributable to 
systemic racism that has roots in Harriet Tubman's time of enslavement.
  The Union of Concerned Scientists developed a Climate Equity Tool to 
identify communities that face conditions that heighten their 
vulnerability to harm and are therefore high-risk environmental justice 
areas, including Dorchester County. UCS projects that the county will 
see a 6-inch rise in sea level by 2030 and 13-inch rise by 2045.
  Cities and towns on the Eastern Shore and around the world have been 
focusing on solving their climate problems. They are working to build 
flood defenses, plan for heatwaves and higher temperatures, install 
water-permeable pavements to better deal with floods and stormwater, 
and improve water storage and use. Dorchester County has a flood 
mitigation plan that identifies projects to protect resources at risk 
of being lost, including historic and cultural sites. However, 
implementation of such plans requires significant funding.
  It is essential that Congress enhances the resilience of vulnerable 
communities in Dorchester County and across the Eastern Shore--and the 
Nation--whose residents have been forced to manage periodic flooding 
and other climate impacts in relative social and political isolation.
  Frontline communities in Dorchester and neighboring Eastern Shore 
counties with strong historical and cultural ties require sufficient 
Federal financial and technical assistance now to help plan for the 
future and make choices about how best to protect themselves from tidal 
flooding, saltwater intrusion, and coastal disasters. Environmental 
justice is an essential component to carry on the anti-racist work that 
Harriet Tubman pioneered. The Inflation Reduction Act includes over 
$125 million in debt relief and assistance to socially disadvantaged 
farmers and ranchers who have faced disproportionate impacts from the 
pandemic as a result of longstanding discrimination. These provisions 
present only a small down payment on the types investments needed to 
address inequality and have yet to squarely address climate change.
  The local communities on the Eastern Shore that served as Harriet 
Tubman's training ground in resistance are rarely credited for their 
outsized influence on Maryland's maritime industry, culture, and 
environment. We must do better to enshrine their place in our 
historical consciousness and provide their local communities with the 
tools

[[Page S2465]]

necessary to prepare for climate change.
  I am grateful for the opportunity to showcase the exceptional efforts 
of one particular Marylander and honor her by pursuing climate and 
environmental justice policies. Harriet Tubman held steadfast to her 
convictions, daring to envision a nation where freedom was truly 
universal. Her unwavering bravery led her to risk her life for the 
betterment of our Nation. Her courage, conviction, and determination 
serve as a profound source of inspiration for us all.

                          ____________________