Harriet Tubman's cause is immortal

Thousands of commuters and tourists drive into the Keystone State every day greeted by a "Welcome to Pennsylvania" sign.

It's a good bet few, if any, of those travelers have the same sense of appreciation as that of former slave Harriet Tubman when she crossed the Mason-Dixon Line into Pennsylvania in 1849.

The legacy of heroine Tubman is in the news now that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said a portrait of Tubman will replace former President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.

Tubman escaped from slavery in the South to become a leading abolitionist before the American Civil War.

Her amazing background is stuff of which movies are made.

Born in Maryland in 1820, she grew up with physical violence which caused permanent injuries. She later revealed how, on one particular day, she was lashed five times before breakfast.

One time when sent to a dry-goods store for supplies, she encountered a fellow slave who'd sneaked away from the cotton fields without permission. The slave's overseer demanded Tubman help restrain the runaway, but she refused.

For punishment, the overseer threw a 2-pound lead weight that struck Tubman in the head. For the rest of her life, Tubman endured seizures, severe headaches and narcoleptic episodes.

It also compromised her usefulness.

In fact, some believe she feared her fate as a sickly slave, a person of low economic worth and perhaps of little use to a wealthy landowner.

So some might say she literally fled for her life when she escaped north to Pennsylvania via the Underground Railroad.

She later served as a Civil War soldier, nurse, spy and scout, and as a social reformer and charitable citizen. But her escape was dramatic.

Historical accounts say she left Maryland with two of her brothers, Ben and Henry, on Sept. 17, 1849.

A notice published in the Cambridge Democrat offered a $300 reward for their return. Her brothers had second thoughts and returned to the plantation. But Tubman wanted no part of bondage. After she saw her brothers safely home, she fled again, this time alone.

So how did she feel as she entered Pennsylvania and crossed the border to freedom?

"When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in heaven," she said.

Putting it into perspective, Catherine Clinton, professor at the University of Texas and author of the biography "Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom," said: "She showed that people are not granted freedom, but that they must grab their freedom."

It just so happens Tubman's portrait will supplant that of Andrew Jackson on U.S. currency.

Ironically, Jackson was a prominent slave owner and a man of position and prestige.

Tubman, on the other hand, never even learned to read or write. Yet she battled the odds and managed to not only survive, but prevail.

Even in death, Tubman will cross another border when her image appears on the $20 bill, showing us that the march to human rights is an immortal journey.

By Donald R. Serfass | dserfass@tnonline.com