LINCOLN UNIVERSITY, Pa. – Yesterday, a group of eight women on a one-hundred-sixteen-mile hike along the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway made a stop at Lincoln University, the nation's first degree-granting Historically Black College & University.
"Yesterday was pure joy!" said Dr. Lenetta R. Lee, dean of the college and vice president for Student Success. "Interacting with the magnificent eight women on the sacred grounds of Lincoln University, what an honor. I found their energy to be enlightening, and when they spoke of the journey tears flowed from our eyes. They truly embodied the spirit."
Lee said that it was clear that the women were connected by a common goal of bringing Harriet Tubman's message of liberation alive in the 21st century. Lee said she and her Student Success colleague Maxine Cook invited the women to campus because their mission is a natural extension of the University’s distinctive legacy of global engagement, social responsibility, and leadership development.
"We're continuing the Lincoln legacy," Lee said.
According to the Facebook page, the women are walking “because we are the daughters of Harriet Tubman. We are walking because this is our story to tell. …Harriet gained freedom walking. We walk with Harriet.”
On Sept. 5, they began in Cambridge, Maryland, at Brodess Farm, a byway stop where Tubman spent part of her childhood in slavery and walked 116 miles along portions of the Tubman Byway ending at Kennett Square yesterday.
A news article from television station 47ABC said the women range in age from their thirties to sixties and didn’t know each other before May but connected through social media. They’re from D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland including Cambridge, Maryland. They’ve been training since March to walk in the footsteps of Harriet Tubman.
One of the walkers set up a Go Fund Me page where all donations will be given to the Harriett Tubman Museum and Educational Center in Cambridge so that they may, “continue educational outreach about the humanitarian work and efforts of Harriett Tubman.”
