Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom

Matt Roush says...

A stirring biographical portrait profiles the runaway slave whom historians estimate led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom before and during the Civil War on daring and dangerous raids. Visions of Freedom suggests that Tubman developed her sense of divine invincibility by experiencing visions and hearing voices that she was convinced came straight from God. “He gave me the strength in my limbs. He meant that I should be free,” says Tubman in words eloquently read by narrator Alfre Woodard. When she was 13 and still enslaved, Tubman’s skull was fractured in an encounter with an overseer, which led to a lifetime of seizures, headaches and visions. She saw this not as a disability but as a sign from a higher power. No wonder they called this conductor of souls “Moses.” Preceded by Making Black America: Through the Grapevine (9/8c) from Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a four-part series exploring the social networks and creation of all-Black towns, universities and business districts that helped define Black Americans’ cultural identity.

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