Maryland Emancipation Author Talk: Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War with Dr. Edda L. Fields – Black

November 1 | 6:30 pm | Teachers/Members (Free); Non-Member: $10

Celebrate Maryland Emancipation Day, an additional Freedom Day besides Juneteenth,  with a book talk and book signing  on Maryland freedom shero Harriet Tubman with Dr. Edda L. Fields – Black with her latest book. Guests can also  mingle with light refreshments at our wine and cheese bar during this epic evening book talk.

Educators are encouraged to attend.Most Americans know of Harriet Tubman’s legendary life: escaping enslavement in 1849, she led more than 60 others out of bondage via the Underground Railroad, gave instructions on getting to freedom to scores more, and went on to live a lifetime fighting for change. Yet the many biographies, children’s books, and films about Tubman omit a crucial chapter: during the Civil War, hired by the Union Army, she ventured into the heart of slave territory–Beaufort, South Carolina–to live, work, and gather intelligence for a daring raid up the Combahee River to attack the major plantations of Rice Country, the breadbasket of the Confederacy.

Edda L. Fields-Black–herself a descendent of one of the participants in the raid–shows how Tubman commanded a ring of spies, scouts, and pilots and participated in military expeditions behind Confederate lines. Fields-Black has worked as a consultant at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the International African American Museum, and the Senator John Heinz History Center. She teaches history at Carnegie Mellon University and serves as Director of the Dietrich College Humanities Center.