Travel With Tubman

In the National Spotlight

Travel with Tubman Tour includes Riverfront Park

This year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Harriet Tubman, a freedom fighter and “conductor” on the historic Underground Railroad, a network of antislavery advocates and safe houses.

To mark the anniversary, the National Park Service (NPS) has launched a trip-planning app, Travel with Tubman: Let Harriet Tubman Guide You on the Journey of a Lifetime.

Among the 13 sites highlighted by the travel tool is Tubman-Garrett Park on the Wilmington Riverfront. The 2.4-acre greenspace memorializes Tubman and Thomas Garrett, a Quaker who collaborated with her from 1855 to 1860 to bring slaves through Delaware and into free territory.

After liberating herself, Tubman returned to Maryland 13 times to rescue friends and family from slavery. In her lifetime she traveled up and down the East Coast, raising money to assist freedom seekers, serving as a nurse and scout during the Civil War, and fighting for universal suffrage.

Tubman-Garrett Park features a sculpture, titled “Unwavering Courage in the Pursuit of Freedom,” which commemorates the friendship of the two freedom fighters. There are also interpretive panels and state markers on the theme of freedom throughout the site.

Debra Martin, Historic Preservation planner for the City of Wilmington, says the statue “is spruced and ready for heritage tourists as they journey to reflect on Tubman’s life in the places she walked.”

“Delaware residents and institutions were pivotal in the Underground Railroad story,” Martin says. “To have even one of the stories, that of the friendship between Thomas Garrett and Harriet Tubman, be made available to the public now at the touch of a button is very energizing to me as a public historian and as an advocate for all things Wilmington.”

For more information on Underground Railroad sites in Delaware, go to: deldot.gov/Programs/byways

Travel with Tubman is available online and best viewed through the free NPS App, downloadable in the iOS App Store and Google Play Store. —Bob Yearick