Harriet Tubman's Descendants Draw Strength From The Matriarch's Legacy

[SunsetDreams]

Descendants of Harriet Tubman, from left, Valery Ross Manokey, 76, Peggy Ross, 60, Delphine Slaughter, 62, Barbara Ross Stanley, 70, and Bernice Ross Carney, 74, gather at Madame Tussauds in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 7 for the unveiling of a wax likeness of the abolitionist.

Valery Ross Manokey doesn’t make the trip as often as she used to, but every now and then she’ll head down to her family’s old homestead in the backwoods of Dorchester County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

She follows the trails that snake through the marshes and pass the former plantations and timber yards. She walks past Bazzel Methodist Episcopal Church, attended by African-Americans in the community since the days of slavery. Manokey crosses the rickety wooden bridge that spans the seven-mile canal that slaves, including her relatives, dug by hand. And in quiet moments there, she says, she can feel the spirit of her ancestors.

"Wonderment is what you feel," Manokey said on a recent afternoon. "Daddy would tell us about those woods. He’d tell us that Harriet [Tubman] had lived down there and how she would travel along roads where there were no roads to rescue her family and our people."

Manokey, 76, is the great-great-grand niece of Harriet Tubman, the escaped slave and abolitionist who became known as the "Moses" of her people, ferrying hundreds of slaves to freedom in the North. Manokey’s great-great grandfather was a blood relative of Ben Ross,Tubman’s father.Today Manokey is the oldest living blood relative of Tubman.

More here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/17/harriet-tubman-relatives-history_n_1285577.html

[bigtree]

1. sweet

"Wonderment is what you feel," Manokey said on a recent afternoon. "Daddy would tell us about those woods. He’d tell us that Harriet had lived down there and how she would travel along roads where there were no roads to rescue her family and our people."

[niyad]

2. k and r--thank you for posting this

[Octafish]

3. North Star

Ms. Tubman never lost a single passenger on the Underground Railroad trips she conducted.

http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~bpg2/Underground%20Railroad/5Resources.html

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Harriet Tubman has been a personal hero to me since age 11.

I'm glad to know about her descendents.

[Odin2005]

5. Very cool!

[lunatica]

6. Tubman is one of my heroes and gives me strength too

My sig line is a quote of hers.

Whenever I think of what we're up against now I remember what Harriet Tubman was up against and truly it gives me strength to continue. If she could face death as much as she did to do the right thing, we should all be able to.