I set the North Star in the heavens
and I mean for you to be free...
We know Harriet Tubman as the Moses of her people. The quintessential American hero, Tubman guided enslaved Africans along the Underground Railroad -- a loose network of racially diverse helpers and top secret hideouts -- from bondage of the South to freedom in North.
Yet little is known about Harriet first trip. Born into slavery, how did she become free? What was her first trip North like? And what inspired her to make nineteen more trips escorting hundreds of slaves, including her own parents, to freedom? Never once getting caught. Never once losing a passenger.
In this elegy to Tubman, award-winning author Carole Boston Weatherford and star illustrator Kadir Nelson imagine all of this and more.
Weatherford poetic narrative and Kadir Nelson magnificent paintings bear witness to an ecstatic event -- the Spirit of God communing with the flesh-and-blood of true humanity. It is one of the most emotional, inspiring reading experiences ever.
