Harriet Tubman: The Ultimate Figure of Conscience

Throughout history, countless individuals have stood up against unfortunate events and the people who caused tribulations for others. Countless conscience individuals risked everything they knew and loved to stand up for the rights of other people. In the sixteenth century. St. Thomas More cared nothing about his good name and took a silent stand against the government by refusing to accept the king’s marriage. He also declined an oath to head as the head of the Church in England. He knew it was better to suffer for making the right decision, than to lie to his society, clergy, and his government, and suffer in that sense. Dietrich Bonhoeffer stood up to Adolf Hitler during World War II, and tried to expose the cruel crimes led by Hitler and the Nazi government. Both men were executed for doing the moral thing. There have been hundreds of other evils committed by mankind in every time period between then.

Harriet Tubman was born into slavery, knowing it firsthand. After all, slavery was one of the biggest injustices this nation has ever faced. She was one of the first abolitionists who not only fled her own slavery, risking her life, but also took risks daily to rescue more than 300 other slaves, even after slavery had been abolished. She was looked up to by figures even as significant as John Brown, a fellow black abolitionist leader, who had joined other militant abolitionists in supporting his plan for slave rebellion. She was the woman that John Brown called General Tubman and the slaves called Moses. The concept of “buying” other human beings to do all undesirable tasks and risk their own lives is inexcusable, though many people argued for it. Because of Harriet’s compassionate personality, and the perseverance ...

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...nstead, she traveled thousands of miles to save the lives of random strangers. She persevered through multiple attempts on her life, not even phased in the slightest. She grew up to be a brilliant woman, despite the fact that she never spent an hour in school, and suffered severe brain damage that almost cost her life. Harriet Tubman was one of the most influential people to anyone with any knowledge in history or humanitarianism.

Works Cited

Humez, Jean McMahon. Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, 2003. Print.

Larson, Kate Clifford. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. New York: Ballantine, 2004. Print.

Nies, Judith, and Judith Nies. "Harriet Tubman." Nine Women: Portraits from the American Radical Tradition. Berkeley: University of California, 2002. 33-59. Print.