As I considered my “Voices” topic for May’s WUN, my thoughts turned immediately to my mother, Bessie L. Walker Roberts. “Miss Bessie,” as friends called her, was born in Newport on September 30, 1925, and passed away in January 2010.
One night, remembering her voice and the lessons she taught me, I awoke from a vivid dream. I was a boy again, coming home from school in tears. Some kids had said my ancestors were “nothing but a bunch of slaves.” I felt ashamed. My mother sat me down, told me the story of the “Black Moses,” and sang the spiritual Steal Away.
I was confused. I knew Moses from Sunday School as a white man with a beard, a staff, and stone tablets. But my mother explained that just as Moses led the Israelites out of slavery, the “Black Moses” led our people to freedom in the 1800s. She said enslaved people would “steal away” from what she called “the white man’s prison farms” and escape north.
When I was 12, I saw a TV broadcast of Mahalia Jackson and Nat King Cole singing Steal Away, and it stirred something deep in me. Even now, hearing that song brings me hope. I remember imagining people escaping by river and through fields, using secret signals along the Underground Railroad. (At the time, I thought it was a literal train running underground through secret tunnels!) My tears turned to joy when I realized I was free because of them.
“Who was the Black Moses?” I asked my mother.
“Harriet Tubman,” she answered.
I was stunned—and awed—that Black Moses was a Black woman. I needed to know more.
The Black Moses from Maryland
Born into slavery as Araminta “Minty” Ross in 1822 Maryland—103 years before my mother—Harriet Tubman was one of nine children. Her family was repeatedly torn apart, with her mother and siblings sent to work different farms, while her father was a freed man and laborer.
At 13, Minty was struck in the head by a heavy object thrown by an overseer. The injury fractured her skull, causing lifelong seizures and pain. Still, she was forced back to field labor. Working with her father in timber yards and loading docks, she learned about the surrounding marshes and seacoast — knowledge that would help guide her own escape and rescue missions for others.
She married John Tubman and took the name Harriet, after her mother. Leaving her husband behind, she escaped to Philadelphia. In 1850, she returned to rescue family members and became a conductor on the Underground Railroad. That same year, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which further emboldened bounty hunters and increased danger for the enslaved. Yet Harriet pressed on.
She made 19 trips in all, guiding over 70 enslaved people to freedom—11 of those journeys going as far as Ontario, Canada. She later declared, “I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”
A New Cause: Union Army, Emancipation, and Reconstruction
During the Civil War, Tubman played a vital role in the Union Army’s efforts to liberate enslaved people. By June 1863, she was a celebrated scout, spy, and militia leader. She joined Colonel James Montgomery and the 3rd Rhode Island Heavy Artillery in a raid along South Carolina’s Combahee River, freeing over 750 enslaved people. Her intelligence work and scouting skills were key to the mission’s success.
Tubman also served as a nurse and cook for the all-Black 54th Massachusetts Regiment — immortalized in the film Glory — and witnessed their bravery at Fort Wagner.
Later in life, she remarried, adopted a daughter named Gertie, and settled in Auburn, NY. Widowed in 1888, she became active in the women’s suffrage movement and, with help from the AME Zion Church, established the Home for the Aged in Auburn. She died of pneumonia in 1913 at age 91.
Her legacy endures through the generations of families she saved, and numerous monuments and tributes. In 2008, Rhode Island officially designated March 10th as Harriet Tubman Day.
A Mother’s Legacy
This Mother’s Day, I honor my mother, whose voice guided me through confusion and pain. When I felt helpless, she led me toward the enduring light of heroes like Harriet Tubman. Both these women still inspire me.
As I walk through my own life and work to create a legacy of telling these untold stories, their voices still speak to me—sometimes in dreams. I hear my mother’s voice, feel Tubman’s courage, and remember that “every great dream begins with a dreamer.” I am that dreamer.
[Sources: National Women’s History Museum, RI News Today]
Charles L. Roberts is Executive Director and Founder of Rhode Island Slave History Medallions, www.rishm.org. He can be reached at charles@rishm.org.
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