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Harriet Tubman Tours is planning a special event on Dec. 22 with a tour and dinner show featuring a Harriet Tubman re-enactor. Tickets cost $50 per person. Call for group and family rates. RSVP no later than Dec. 14. Find out more or contact them directly at tubmantours@gmail.com.

The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park & Visitor Center is working on a short film to serve as an introduction to Tubman’s life. As part of that, the producers are looking for looking for background actors for filming in late October. No acting experience needed. If you’re interested, see the flier with details and who to contact.

The public is cordially invited to the 17th annual Faith Community United Methodist Church in East New Market, MD (Site #21 along the Tubman Byway) for the annual Heritage Day on Saturday, October 6, starting at 11am. This event will feature a celebration of African-American music, dance, food, and fellowship.

The theme for 2018 is “Return to Our Roots.” The keynote speaker will be Dale Glenwood Green, an Eastern Shore native and Professor of Architecture and Chair of Historic Preservation Program at Morgan State University. His ancestor was Rev. Samuel Green, who was a freed slave, pastor, and collaborator with Harriet Tubman in the 1800s. Green was eventually caught and imprisoned for possessing a copy of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The sentence was 10 years. He lived in East New Market, Maryland, and preached at what is today Faith Community United Methodist Church (Site #21 along the Tubman Byway). Rev. Green then went on to be one of the founders of Morgan State University, where his descendant Dale Green works today.

Music will be provided by Waugh Chapel United Methodist Church Gospel Choir and the Green Family Ensemble.  All are welcome. This event has been sponsored by the East New Market Town Council, Dorchester Elks Lodge #223,  and the Heart of the Chesapeake Heritage Area.

Faith Community is located near the corner of Routes 14 and 392 in East New Market, Maryland. Questions? Contact Herschel Johnson at 410-228-6657 or Royce Sampson at 410-820-8350.

ADDRESS: 509 Railroad Ave, East New Market, MD 21631

Maryland’s Rural Legacy Program will now protect some 28,000 acres of land in Dorchester County, where Harriet Tubman was born. As a story in the Daily Times describes it: “In rural Dorchester County adjacent to Blackwater Wildlife Refuge lies a 28,300-acre tract that is the best-preserved example of a natural, cultural and historic landscape unchanged since the days of the Underground Railroad. Driving through the this timeless area in Dorchester County will make it easier to imagine the ordeal those frightened runaway slaves endured as they sought freedom. That is the legacy Maryland has recently taken steps to preserve by creating the Harriet Tubman Rural Legacy Area, a move that will prevent the historic landscape from future development by private landowners.” Read the entire story here.

Lost history rediscovered! Come out Friday, Sept. 21 from 6 to 8pm to hear about newly rediscovered history about Frederick Douglass on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Join local historians and community leaders for a presentation about previously unknown high-profile visits that Frederick Douglass made, while serving as Marshal of the District of Columbia, to Cambridge, Maryland — a few miles from where Harriet Tubman was born. Presenters include Bill Jarmon of the Harriet Tubman Museum & Educational Center; John Muller, author of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C: The Lion of Anacostia; and Linda Duyer, Eastern Shore historian.

The event is free and open to all and happens at the Harriet Tubman Museum & Educational Center, (Stop #5 on the Tubman Byway), 424 Race St., Cambridge, MD.

Abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland, which adjoins Dorchester County, where Harriet Tubman was born. He went on to escape slavery and became a national figure and speaker. He returned to Talbot County and made a now famous speech in 1878, but it was previously not known that he had also visited Cambridge, Maryland in Dorchester County.  The year 2018 marks 200 years since his birth. Find out more and explore the self-guided Frederick Douglass driving tours in Talbot County.

Hear an Interpretive Program from a National Park Service ranger from 2 to 3pm on Thursday, Dec. 7, inside the Multi-Purpose room at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center, and learn how the landscape of Maryland’s Eastern Shore provided opportunities for escape for freedom seekers.

This program is free and open to the public.

ADDRESS: 4068 Golden Hill Road, Church Creek, Maryland 21622

When Harriet Tubman set off to find her freedom, summertime was in the past. In fact, many of her rescues were made in the fall or winter, making conditions much more extreme. In addition to finding her way while keeping herself and her charges hidden, these passengers needed to eat.

Adapted from the Adkins Arboretum walking tour about “nature’s role in the flight to freedom,” Julianna Pax will share “Walking the Tubman Trail” on Wednesday, December 6 at noon. Mrs. Pax, a volunteer docent at Adkins as well as the Heritage Museums will lead the viewers, virtually, through a countryside with which Harriet would be familiar. While diminished greatly, the flora and fauna found today on the eastern shore is very close to what it was almost 200 years ago.

This presentation and discussion will work to enlighten about the types of foods that are readily available in the forest, even today. In addition, this discussion will only enhance our understanding of those who fled the institution of slavery, while, in many cases, leaving the only home they had ever know.

This offering is free and open to the public although donations are always appreciated. The Heritage Museums and Gardens of Dorchester is located at 1003 Greenway Drive in Cambridge, MD. For more information, call 410-228-7953.

When Mashona Council arrived in Dorchester County from where she lives in Atlanta, Georgia, she didn’t expect much attention. Her mission to walk the entire Maryland portion of the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway was a personal challenge and a spiritual quest. But her 125-mile “Freedom Walk,” carrying the spirit of Harriet Tubman, inspired thousands as people learned of her quest through social media. She began her walk in Cambridge on Sept. 17, the same day that Tubman attempted her first escape from slavery back in 1849. She finished seven days later as she crossed the line from Maryland into Delaware.

• See what Mashona shared along the way on her Facebook page.
• See the WMDT-TV coverage of Mashona completing her walk.
• Read the front-page story in the Star Democrat.

Heralds of Hope Theater Company presents Harriet Tubman: Defender on Saturday, Sept 16 at 6pm and Sunday, Sept. 17 at 3pm. This is a powerful presentation of Harriet Tubman’s life and journey on the Underground Railroad told in narrative and song. Written and directed by Percy W. Thomas, this one-woman play depicts Harriet Tubman at the age of 50 reflecting back on her childhood memories and proclaiming her future. Through narrative, song, and visual projections, the audience experiences both the pain and elation of Harriet’s being freed from the bounds of slavery, and how she became one of the most famous women in the history of the United States.

The performance happens at the ArtBar at Liv Again, 317 High Street (second floor) in downtown Cambridge, MD. Tickets: For adults, $20 in advance, $25 at the door. For groups, $15 in advance, $20 at the door. For students, $10 in advance, $15 at the door. Buy tickets in advance.

ADDRESS: 317 High St., Cambridge, MD 21613

John H. Miller, PhD, will be the speaker on “Amazing Grace:” Sailing into Slavery, Sailing into Freedom” at the Richardson Maritime Museum on Saturday, June 24, from 1 to 2 pm at 401 High Street, Cambridge, MD. Admission is free.
Miller’s talk is based on research for a course he taught as one of some 35 faculty during the University of Virginia’s Semester at Sea program aboard the student ship MV World Odyssey during its four-month 2015 voyage of Atlantic exploration. During this journey about 400 undergraduate students from the USA and abroad took for-credit courses on various subjects while sailing to ports in the Mediterranean, West Africa, and across the Atlantic’s infamous “Middle Passage” to Brazil, and onward to the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, and ending in San Diego.

We are all familiar with then-enslaved Frederick Douglass’s famous ode to the white sails of vessels on Chesapeake’s Eastern Bay that he hoped would one day sail him into to freedom from bondage in Talbot County. But few of us are familiar with the lesser-known words of then-free Ibo tribesman Olaudah Equiano who later recorded his horror on being captured and then seeing the white sails of a large ship off the Bight of Benin, a ship that would sail him into slavery in the supposed “El Dorado” of the New World.

Miller will discuss the shared experiences that enmeshed all aboard these “Guineamen,” a euphemism for slave ships. From the ruthless, all-powerful captains of these vessels and their motley down-and-out crews to the enslaved African “cargo” held ‘tween decks, all aboard descended into hell. One of these captains was John Newton, a man who later repented of his voyages aboard slave ships, became an Anglican minister, and wrote the world-famous hymn, Amazing Grace. “Whatever ‘amazing grace’ may have come from the international slave trade,” says Miller, “can be found in the even lesser-known and extraordinarily poignant stories about personal post-voyage encounters between slave ships’ crews and their ‘cargo.’” On a more local level, Miller will also explore aspects of the “maritime underground railroad” that operated along America’s mid-Atlantic during the 19th century, including the story of the schooner Pearl.

John H. Miller received his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh and his BA from Yale College. He currently co-facilitates literature courses with his colleague, John Ford, at the Academy for Lifelong Learning at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, where Miller formerly served as Vice President of Advancement.

The presentation at the Richardson Maritime Museum has been planned in concert with the Choptank River Lighthouse, located just down High Street on the waterfront at Long Wharf Park. On the same day as Miller’s talk, the Lighthouse is opening a new exhibit titled, “View from the Lighthouse: The Underground Railroad.”

Housed on the second floor, that exhibit looks out over the scenes visible in all four directions from the Lighthouse and shows how they relate to the stories of Dorchester Country native Harriet Tubman and other passengers and conductors on the Underground Railroad with local roots.

The Lighthouse will be open to visitors on June 24 in the hours before and after “Amazing Grace” at the Richardson Museum. In addition, the Harriet Tubman Museum and Educational Center in downtown Cambridge will be open to visitors that day as well. That museum is located at 424 Race Street, just two blocks from the Richardson Museum.

ADDRESS of RICHARDSON MUSEUM: 401 High St., Cambridge, MD 21613