[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18811-18812]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     ENACTMENT OF THE HARRIET TUBMAN NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARKS ACT

  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I wish to celebrate the long awaited 
enactment of the Harriet Tubman National Historical Parks Act, a bill 
to establish the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National 
Historical Park on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and the Harriet Tubman 
National Historical Park in Auburn, NY. This is an effort that I have 
worked closely with Senators Mikulski, Schumer and Gillibrand as well 
as Secretary Clinton, when she represented New York in this body, and 
mark the culmination of the legislative work on this effort started by 
my predecessor, Senator Sarbanes when he passed legislation 
commissioning the National Service to conduct a Special Resource Study 
on Harriet Tubman. We all share a deep appreciation for how important 
establishing these parks is to preserving the legacy of this remarkable 
historical figure in American History but also to how important these 
parks will be to the communities where they will be located.
  In my career, I have spoken on the Senate Floor, at events in 
Maryland, in meetings with constituents and with my colleagues about 
Harriet Tubman's legacy. While I hope each opportunity I have taken to 
discuss the life of this remarkable woman helps raise awareness about 
her importance to the history of our great nation, my ultimate goal has 
always been to properly commemorate her life and her work by 
establishing the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National 
Historical Park on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and, to establish the 
Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in Auburn, NY.
  For the last 7 years I have championed the legislation that was 
enacted today as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.
  I also greatly appreciate the support this legislation received in 
the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Senate as a 
whole. In both this Congress and the 112 Congress, the Harriet Tubman 
National Historical Parks Act was reported out of committee with 
bipartisan support including the support of Chairwoman Landrieu and 
Ranking Member Murkowski. I am incredibly grateful for the work of the 
Chair and Ranking Member, and their staffs, to maintain progress on the 
bill which has led to its passage today.
  The establishment of the Harriet Tubman Historical Parks has been 
years in the making and is long overdue. The mission of the National 
Park Service has evolved over time from not only preserving natural 
wonders across the U.S. for recreational purposes but also 
commemorating unique places of significance to historical events and 
extraordinary Americans that have shaped our nation.
  The woman, who is known to us as Harriet Tubman, was born in 
approximately 1822 in Dorchester County, MD, and given the name 
Araminta, Minty, Ross. She spent nearly 30 years of her life in slavery 
on Maryland's Eastern Shore. She worked on a number of different 
plantations on Maryland's Eastern Shore and as a teenager was trained 
to be a seamstress. As an adult she took the first name Harriet, and 
when she was 25 years-old married John Tubman.
  In her late twenties, Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in 1849. 
She fled in the dead of night, navigating the maze of tidal streams and 
wetlands that, to this day, comprise the Eastern Shore's landscape. She 
did so alone, demonstrating courage, strength and fortitude that became 
her hallmarks. Not satisfied with attaining her own freedom, she 
returned repeatedly for more than 10 years to the places of her 
enslavement in Dorchester and Caroline counties where, under the most 
adverse conditions, she led away many family members and other slaves 
to freedom in the Northeastern United States. She helped develop a 
complex network of safe houses and recruited abolitionist sympathizers 
residing along secret routes connecting the Southern slave states and 
Northern Free States. No one knows exactly how many people she led to 
freedom or the number of trips between the North and South she led, but 
the legend of her work was an inspiration to the multitude of slaves 
seeking freedom and to abolitionists fighting to end slavery. Tubman 
became known as ``the Moses of her people'' by African-Americans and 
white abolitionists alike. Tubman once proudly told Frederick Douglass 
that in all of her journeys she ``never lost a single passenger.'' She 
was so effective that in 1856 there was a $40,000 reward offered for 
her capture in the South. She is the most famous and most important 
conductor of the network of resistance known as the Underground 
Railroad.
  During the Civil War, Tubman served the Union forces as a spy, a 
scout and a nurse. She served in Virginia, Florida, and South Carolina. 
She is credited with leading slaves from those slave states to freedom 
during those years as well.
  Following the Civil War, and the emancipation of all black slaves, 
Tubman settled in Auburn, NY. There she was active in the women's 
suffrage movement, and she also established one of the first 
incorporated African-American homes for aged to care for the elderly. 
In 1903 she bequeathed the Tubman Home to the African Methodist 
Episcopal Zion Church in Auburn where it stands to this day. Harriet 
Tubman died in Auburn in 1913 and she is buried in the Fort Hill 
Cemetery. Fortunately many of the structures and landmarks in New York 
remain intact and in relatively good condition.
  Only recently has the Park Service begun establishing units dedicated 
to the lives of African-Americans. Places like Booker T. Washington 
National Monument on the campus of the Tuskegee University in Alabama, 
the George Washington Carver National Monument in Missouri, The Buffalo 
Soldiers at Guadalupe Mountains National Park, the National Historical 
Trail commemorating the March for Voting Rights from Selma to 
Montgomery Alabama, and most recently

[[Page 18812]]

the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial on the National Mall are all 
important monuments and places of historical significance that help 
tell the story of the African-American experience.
  As the National Park Service continues its important work to 
recognize and preserve African-American history by providing greater 
public access and information about the places and people that have 
shaped the African-American experience, there are very few units 
dedicated to the lives of African-American women, and there are no 
National Historical Parks commemorating African-American women.
  I cannot think of a more fitting hero than Harriet Tubman to be the 
first African-American woman to be memorialized with National 
Historical Parks that tell both her personal story and her lifelong 
fight for justice and freedom starting with her fight against the cruel 
institution of slavery and work of the Underground Railroad she led to 
her work in the women's suffrage movement.
  I am grateful for the support of my colleagues. These parks will 
hopefully pave the way for the Park Service to develop more National 
Historical Parks commemorating the lives of many other important 
African-American women in our history.
  The vision for the Tubman National Historical Parks is to preserve 
the places significant to the life of Harriet Tubman and tell her story 
through interpretative activities and continue to discover aspects of 
her life and the experience of passage along the Underground Railroad 
through archaeological research and discovery.
  The buildings and structures in Maryland have mostly disappeared. 
Slaves were forced to live in primitive buildings even though many 
slaves were skilled tradesmen who constructed the substantial homes of 
their owners. Not surprisingly, few of the structures associated with 
the early years of Tubman's life remain standing today. The landscape 
of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, however, is still evocative of the 
time that Tubman lived there. Farm fields and loblolly pine forests dot 
the lowland landscape, which is also notable for its extensive network 
of tidal rivers and wetlands that Tubman, and the people she guided to 
freedom, under the cover of night. In particular, a number of 
properties including the homestead of Ben Ross, her father, Stewart's 
Canal, where he worked, the Brodess Farm, where she worked as a slave, 
and others are within the master plan boundaries of the Blackwater 
National Wildlife Refuge.
  Similarly, Poplar Neck, the plantation from which she escaped to 
freedom, is still largely intact in Caroline County. The properties in 
Talbot County, immediately across the Choptank River from the 
plantation, are currently protected by various conservation easements. 
Were she alive today, Tubman would recognize much of the landscape that 
she knew intimately as she secretly led black men, women and children 
to freedom.
  There has never been any doubt that Tubman led an extraordinary life. 
Her contributions to American history are surpassed by few. Determining 
the most appropriate way to recognize that life and her contributions, 
however, has been exceedingly difficult. The National Park Service 
determined that designating a Historical Park that would include two 
geographically separate units would be an appropriate tribute to the 
life of this extraordinary American. The New York unit would include 
the tightly clustered Tubman buildings in the town of Auburn. The 
Maryland portion would include large sections of landscapes that are 
evocative of Tubman's time and are historically relevant.
  Harriet Tubman was a true American patriot. She was someone for whom 
liberty and freedom were not just concepts but values she fought 
tirelessly for. She lived those principles and so selflessly helped 
others attain freedom. In doing so, she has earned a Nation's respect 
and honor.
  Harriet Tubman is one of many great Americans that we honor and 
celebrate every February during Black History Month. In schools across 
the country, American History curriculums teach our children about 
Tubman's courage, conviction, her fight for freedom and her 
contributions to the greatness of our Nation during a contentious time 
in U.S. history. Now it is time to add to Tubman's legacy by preserving 
and commemorating the places evocative of Harriet Tubman's 
extraordinary life.
  Every year, millions of school children, as well as millions of 
adults, visit our National Historical Parks gain the experience and 
knowledge about our Nation's history that simply cannot be found in 
history books or on the Internet. Our Nation's strength and character 
comes from the actions of the Americans who came before us and the 
significant events that shaped our Nation. The National Park Service is 
engaged in the important work of preserving the places where American 
history was made and providing a tangible experience for current and 
future generations to experience and understand. It is one thing to 
learn about Harriet Tubman from a book, and it is yet a completely 
different and fulfilling experience to explore, see, listen to and feel 
the places where she worked as a slave, where she escaped from and 
where she lived out her life as a free American.
  The National Park Service is uniquely suited to honor and preserve 
these places of historical significance and I urge my colleagues to 
join me in preserving and growing the legacy of Harriet Tubman by 
establishing the Harriet Tubman National Historical Parks in her honor.

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