We need a federal holiday to honor Harriet Tubman

On March 10, I spoke at Philadelphia’s City Hall alongside Congressman Brendan Boyle and Mayor Jim Kenney for Philadelphia’s celebration of the life of Harriet Tubman: the beloved abolitionist, Underground Railroad conductor, entrepreneur, and my personal guiding light.

Ironically, all the walls of the room at City Hall where I spoke were adorned with portraits of historical figures deemed worthy of the high honor of recognition — none of whom looked like myself or Harriet Tubman.

The assembly at City Hall was the culmination of two months of citywide celebrations of Tubman’s life and legacy, which coincided with a traveling statue sculpted by Wesley Wofford that was moving from state to state. The event was designed by Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy to promote a permanent statue for Harriet that will soon be built in our city.

Understandably, the packed room of Philadelphians was elated about the Wofford statue. Folks were clapping and snapping pictures, and, at the end, there was a reception with cupcakes as folks commemorated the 200th anniversary of Harriet Tubman’s birthday.

(I had come to the event dressed in all black and with a veil. Although we will never know Harriet Tubman’s birth date because she was born into a country that categorized her as less than human, we know for sure that March 10, 1913, is the day she died.)

Just a few days prior, I had found myself frustrated to tears and had to pull over in my car to scream out loud. I had just been told by the mayor and the congressman’s respective teams that I would not be given time to speak at this event. Two well-meaning politicians would stand in front of the room instead.

I could not process my generational rage at this gesture without reaching out for support from other “Harriets” — my network of modern-day abolitionists who also view Tubman as a spiritual mentor. After my near-breakdown, my sister contacted Congressman Boyle’s office and invited them to consider how problematic it would be if two politicians stood before a crowd of Harriets to announce that the Harriet Tubman Day Act (HR 7013) had been introduced in Congress. Meanwhile, the woman who’d been helping to organize the effort on the ground, the woman who brought the idea to the congressman in the first place, would not have a turn at the mic.

Representatives for the mayor and the congressman later apologized for the oversight. I accepted their sincere regret and decided it best to complete the mission the way Harriet would. Congressman Boyle introduced me and gave me his time to speak.

It was important to me not because I like standing in front of crowds — to be clear, I do not. It was important because I was concerned that folks would gather to pay homage to Tubman’s legacy while whitewashing the purpose of her work — that folks would not be seriously committed to the idea of creating a holy day set aside for grieving the atrocities of slavery. A Tubman holiday is a moment to discuss repairing the harm of slavery, not a time to party with cupcakes, shucking and jiving, high-fiving, reenactments, and songs. What if we save the celebrations for an actual policy change, not yet another symbolic victory? Why not wait to build a statue after an actual win? After a measurable change occurs? After a drastic decrease in the city’s homicides, for instance, after a decrease in the city’s poverty level or homelessness? After getting the Harriet Tubman Day Act approved, even.

About 1.8 million of my ancestors died during the middle passage from Africa to the Americas. Thousands of my ancestors were accosted and then brought into Philadelphia’s ports in chains to be sold into slavery. Thousands more died toiling the soil that brought the industries of cotton and sugar to this city. Not to mention the 40,000 who died during the Civil War, or the 6,500 who were lynched after so-called emancipation. And no number is available to account for the lives traumatically affected for generations as a result of slavery’s hate and harm. A statue alone does not do it.

My great-great-grandmother’s grandmother, Lula Styles, passed down stories of being made to eat out of a pig trough. My great-great-grandfather Washington Reese recalled coming to this country on a boat in chains, yet folks think we need another day for cupcakes, another day for picnics and fireworks, or even worse, another opportunity for corporate America to swoop in and commodify a date so folks can buy cheaply made T-shirts and bandannas with cool slogans created by modern-day slaves.

Tubman’s legacy — her repeated trips to the South to rescue enslaved people, her time on the Combohee River, her work as a spy and a scout for the Union Army, and the less familiar fight that she had with the U.S. government for a pension that she never received for a war this country might not have won without her — is worth celebrating.

I did get three minutes at the event to speak my piece. I shared that some people get to be sacred. Harriet Tubman Day should not and will not be another day for pretending everything is OK. We have enough days for that. It is not simply a day off from work. We have enough days for that. What we don’t have in this country, in this world, is a day for mourning the effects of the special brand of chattel slavery that happened on this nation’s soil and implementing solutions for how to reckon with that. We don’t have a collective day to create proper redress for the continued atrocities inflicted on my ancestors and their descendants.

Everything is not OK, so we must grieve. Grieving is a healthy response to loss that, when done well, eventually leads to acceptance. The lack of looking back — of sitting in the fire, as some people say — is what has caused decades of denial and anger and racial tension. This type of anger bubbles over into riots and uprisings when it continues to go unaddressed.

» READ MORE: Can I get an amen for Philly’s decision to commission a permanent Harriet Tubman statue? | Jenice Armstrong

We need a collective mourning ritual to mark the losses suffered by our community and its members. Harriet Tubman Day is just the beginning of a ritual that needs to be designed and led by the communities who are most affected by the specific harm of slavery. Everyone else gets to respect and mourn alongside us for the deep sadness that comes from benefiting from someone else’s enslavement.

Now that the Harriet Tubman Day Act has been introduced in Congress, many people ask me: When is the vote? Sadly, that is a question I cannot answer. But I think the question raises a great point. How is it that some bills get kicked around Congress for years while others get passed overnight? How is it that some legislation moves fast and some so slow? Is it legislative oppression? Legislative neglect? For instance, lynching was classified as a federal hate crime earlier this year — about 130 years after Ida B. Wells (another of our guiding-light ancestors) began a campaign to do so.

We cannot wait another 130 years to start this process. We are asking those who can to write their congressperson and let them know you support HR 7013 for Harriet Tubman Day and remember to add the measurable request — we’d like to see this bill passed by or before March 10, 2023. Send us a photo of your letter to info@harriettsbookshop.com to be published in an upcoming book.

Jeannine A. Cook is shopkeeper at Harriett’s Books in Philly and Ida’s Books in Collingswood. She is writing a memoir. For the purposes of this op-ed and to adhere with Inquirer style, one T is used. In naming her bookshop in honor of Tubman and her mother, who were illiterate and never wrote their names, Cook uses two Ts.