Who are feeling that connection to history, i dont think people have stopped talking about Harriet Tubman. One of my Favorite Places in the city is the place called tubman house. Has anybody ever been to tubman house. You should really check out on one of the volunteer days. These are folks up after the uprising the murder of freddie gray, took uber the house in west baltimore. They took uber a house and turn it into a community center. It was this neighborhood in winchester where it really people had very little if anything in the Community Came together to take Something Back themselves. They have subsequently the house had to be demolished but then they have taken uber multiple lots in the area and they got chickens and farms, if at this amazing new Program Going on. It is really just a center of hope for our neighborhood that needs it. And they did all of that on the name of tubman house. Because the story of him. Tubman was one and inspires people to think that day. To think that mold. I am super excited that Armstrong Dunbar has created this book. It is an incredibly accessible engaging introduction to Harriet Tubman. I can help a whole new generation of folks get to know the story. I think is the story that is really worth knowing and glad more people are going to know it thanks in this book so please join me in welcoming erica Armstrong Dunbar. [applause]. Thank you. It is so perfect to be here in maryland. In talking about tubman right. Where else should be we be talking about tubman. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here and i am actually, this is sort of a sneak peek regarding the book because the book doesnt technically come out until tuesday so that also means that if you want to buy a book, you will be getting the first copies of them. That is my little plug. We are authors but we are also booksellers. And editors, and pr people. So i want to shout out to all of the authors in the audience who are doing all of that work. So i thought i would do today is to talk a little bit until read it little bit about tubman in the book and read from the book, and then we have some time for q a at the end i think it is a special moment in part because of the National Release of the book or film yesterday. We have this film opening nation wide so tens of thousands of people have gone to see this portrayal of tubman. It is sort of a Perfect Moment for her. After the book. I will talk a little bit and then we will have some time for q and a. Death can be a good think. For the enslaved, the death of an owner, can end a decades long reign of terror. Indent owner could no longer use the web to split open the flesh of its human property. Nor could he violate the bodies of his enslaved women and children. Sometimes, the enslaved prayed or begged for death. Garamond toronto, found herself doing this very think. During the early weeks since 1849, airman top, also called minty, began a prayer vigil. Praying for the souls of the man she called her master. She did not believe that edward roden was a christian. And she pleaded with her weve god for his conversion. She knew that if cronus accepted weve god into his heart, he would repent for his sins. Perhaps, become a better man. Maybe even see his way to offering freedom to her mother. If not herself. But in the midst of her prayer visuals, and mento, would have to change course. She would continue to prayer great and they would check themselves and rumors spread that her owner was deep in debt. In any plan to sell her and some of her brothers. To the lower south. A land scape painted black and white by the expansion of black slavery and white cotton blossoms era meant that said she change her prayer and she said lord if you are ever going to change his heart, kill him. And take him out of the way. So that he wont do no more mischief. By march of 1849, he was dead. But its his death could mean ruin. For a Small Community of an enslaved man and women on the Eastern Shore of maryland. They had worked their owners land in dorchester county, calling his farm, their home. But every enslaved person everywhere, understood the agility of their circumstance. The most fortunate of the enslaved remained close to family members and kinfolk. The unlucky ones, found themselves ripped from all they knew. And they were sold south and it with the threat of never seeing their loved ones again airman test, was considered one of the fortunate. And off of her 27 years on earth had been challenging in more ways than imaginable. Era mento, experience the comfort of growing up with two parents most of her eight siblings and a new husband. The crevice of happiness carved out by araminta and her family was soon to be erased. By the death of her owner and his unpaid debts and financial hard times, to the farm, the widow would need to raise her name quickly. And there was only one commodity that would guarantee a windfall of cash in them slaves. Araminta and watch her parents deal with the pain of losing three daughters, linda, mariah, and individually sold to the highest bidder. Her family was ruptured and she knew the Auction Block was in her near future. Araminta continued to pray. Now she begged her weve god to help her find a way to freedom, to reinforce her nerve vinaigrette in her strength and her physical stamina. In september 1849, araminta and her brothers, ben and henry, escaped from the plantation. And by october, the widow, have placed an advertisement in the newspaper for the trace. Offering a reward of up to of of 2100 for the runaways. Join fear sank into the hearts of her brothers, he made the decision to return home. They all but dragged their sister back to the farm. We dont know the exact moment but in honor of her mother, araminta change her name to harriet. And she took her husband news last name of tubman. Harriet tubman would become one of americas most wanted fugitives, the woman who risked her live. To rescue her family, dozens of friends, all from the clutches of southern slavery. And every time tubman traveled on a rescue message to maryland, she went with one primary reason. To save lives. She came to see. And miss tubman played no games. And while tubman very well known, very few know the sort of intimate details of her live. The perilous journey, she traveled to save yourself and many others from the lifetime of slavery. Most readers are familiar with tubman tying her as a conductor on an underground railroad. She was much more textured sort of nuance 19th century social justice advocate. And with the release of the film, i think as well as the release of she came to sleep. Viewers and readers are introduced to a young woman. He lived and loved on the trauma of enslavement. We meet a woman who escaped from slavery and return to the Eastern Shores as well is to baltimore. In at least 13 times. In order to save her family and friends and never once losing a person sick slave catchers. Think about that. Thirteen times. Traveling uber 100 miles. On her own. To save up to 60 and 70 people. Tubman news victories are in full display but one of the things that we must also engage is her personal loss. The violence of slavery forced tubman to leave behind husband, and upon her return trip to maryland, her worst fear was confirmed that she had been replaced. She experienced the loss of slip billings be the Auction Block and natural deaths and she was intimately connected to countless stories of the trauma of slavery. So i begin she became a slave is sort of a different. With tubman. Most folks sort of think about tubman or at least begin her story in 1822 around the time in which we believe tubman was born. But i wanted to connect tubman to the story of african slavery. It began with her earliest traceable descendent. And i was her grandmother. Toward the end of the 18th century tubman news grandmother crossed the Atlantic Ocean via the passage. And she arrived on the Eastern Shore of maryland. She was given the name modesty. And would eventually give birth to tubman news mother, who would become known or would be known as harriet green. Im going to read briefly. From the book. It was a sort of moment that we begin the story. With harriets good mother. Lying in the belly of a wooden vessel, trying to remember join she had last seen her family. She tried to make sense of the nightmare of her live. It was as if she had to stumbled, into another world. Her eyes never adjusted to the complete darkness. In the hold of the ship. The smell of stale urine and feces, and rancid vomit swallowed up the breathable air. Leaving her nauseated and short of breath. She grew sick, dysentery and smallpox were in the air. And claimed the lives of the men and women all around her. There dead or dying bodies were dragged to the top neck. And carelessly thrown overboard. Their limbs and torsos would serve as a shark bait. The sheep managed to escape death, she grew weaker. Rations were limited. So she ate stingy fortunes of the food often stocked for the enslaved. Peas and yams, corn, rice, meat and fish were in short supply and only eaten by the white men who spoke and moved with rage. Modesty, was struck by her own transformation. Her legs in particular for week. So weak she wondered if theyd even be able to carry her weight or if they would snap and break like dry timber. The moment she tried to walk with purpose. If there was one Silver Lining to her dramatic weight loss, it was that it plays less rain on her aching knees and feet. Join she was forced to exercise on the top deck, the less joe making dancing on demand, she had to do a better. It was useless to try and count how much time had passed so she waited and waited for death. Or deliverance. Not knowing if they were one and the same. Join the ship finally dropped anchor, she disembarked from her voyage. She was looking like a different person. Her thin and sickly skeletal frame, was hard in more ways than one. Her eyes met with foreign land filled with strange sites and unfamiliar faces. The pale faced man, who tortured her and her shipmates and those who survived and those who jumped overboard, are not so insignificant act of rebellion. They spoke a language that was rough to her ears. She would have to learn this new tone. And she would need to learn it quickly. Having arrived in the colony of maryland, like hundreds of thousands of other men and women and children, she was old to fuel the engine of american slavery. Her slavery was a man named pattison. And once he concluded his purchase, took her to his farm. He would name her modesty. Maybe it was in the blink of weve god news eye and maybe it took a lifetime but eventually she came to understand that she would never again see her homeland. Marla points. She didnt succumb to whatever grief that knowledge produced. Modesty would do join millions of other enslaved africans taught to do. She survived. Her strength and will were inheritable traits passed down to her descendents who not only survived but also managed to free themselves from slavery by script. Modesty would not live long enough to witness her granddaughter. Armenta. Grow tired of slavery news cruelty. She would never know the little mentee would become an american gladiator. Who fought and slaved the lion known as slavery. Modesty would not live to see her granddaughter change her name and become the moses of her people. She would never know the name of Harriet Tubman would bring hope and strength to the enslaved and raging fury to their enslavers. This african woman planted a seed of resilience in her progeny. And that would blossom even in her absence. And so i began that the book really locating tubman sort of a heritable trait, a strength from her grandmother and her grandmother gave birth to her mother, harriet green, and armenta news father, was a man named ben ross. Benjamin ross. Alongside his wife, raised eight children. Including tubman. And while tubman its been most of her childhood with her parents she was often hired out to different farms. The passage that began join she was five to six years old. Until the start of think about this. This typical, we think about tubman it, or she is presented to us in history textbooks, sort of as an older woman. That his head covered, hands clasped slightly bent uber. It tubman didnt just sort of appear as an older woman. Like the one we see in our textbook. She began her live enslaved as a child. In many ways her childhood with very similar to other enslaved children in maryland and other colonies estates. They kept alive the institution of slavery. The shore of maryland, there wasnt enough need for farms to host hundreds of enslaved people and for that reason, armenta was hired out. She is five or six so she is forced to leave the home that she has with her mother. She is sent away to work on another forum. Lets think about this. This typical kindergartner. Someone who did not yet have her adult teeth. She sent away to work on various forms. And she later on tells the story about how terrible and tragic this moment was. She had a bed and she was forced to do some of the most difficult work imaginable and one of her earliest response abilities would be to empty the muskrat traps of her new owner. And along this sort of marshy Eastern Shores, imagine, a five yearold attempting to open the trap and release the dead rodent. And bring them back to her owner for the help help. She was also responsible for doing domestic learning to e. She of course had to take care of the owners babies. She was so small, she had to sit on the floor chatted sam. Can stay on and hold the baby. In a night join the baby would wait, and armenta couldnt put the child back to sleep quickly. The new owners wife would reach for her with it armenta on her neck and head. Making her part of why its the baby. This was the childhood into which armenta was brought in warm and join that was symbolic enslaved children from very early edge, tubman learned how to take care herself. She didnt know it, but she was a warrior in training and is tubman grew older, she eventually perfected the most difficult labor often outperforming her male counterpart. Her small 5foot tall frame harness the power of the tallest of men. She was also faced with this sort of compromising health situation. Sometime between 18341936, she is asked or told to go down to the sort of local general store for some errands and she thinks is going to be sort of a trip quiktrip. She was the star and well its en route to the store and other sort of situation happening. An enslaved man and you dont know whether hes running away our farm. Cost and trouble but he was running an overseer was in hot pursuit and everyone aromatic, sees this runaway and the overseer they all sort of come together in this general store in the same time. In the overseer demands era metta to help them. And he tells her to help grab this roadway. Airmen that refuses to do so. She is the teenager. Shes 13 or 14 years old. And join she refuses, this runaway, he gets out of the door of the store, and the overseer is so furious. Then he picks up a 2pound middleweight on the counter. And he hurls it we believe in the direction of the runaways. But it collides with a armenta news. It fractures for school. Shes unconscious, she is bleeding. Shes taken from the store, she does name have a bed. She doesnt have a bed to lay in. He lay her on the seat of a weaving loom. And she is forced actually to go back to work. Two agricultural work. Quickly. And she remembers she does us later on in her live that she could barely see the well have wasnt tripping into her eyes. It was from this moment on, she would struggle with a health condition. We dont often see great tubman in the lens of a disability or having a disability. She did. She would struggle with really what would be a neurological condition after being hit with this white in the head. The rest of her live. She often slipped in and out of narcolepsy transits, a sort of slipping spells. For those of you have seen the film, harriet is sort of a featured in the film and the passage she would fall asleep that went out warning. And people learned her family and friends learned that they had simply wait for her to browse. And eventually she would. And so imagine, she lived with us for the entirety of her live. Thus remember tubman lives for almost 91 years. So this was sort of an impediment, and physical impediment she live with but it also brought about something else. The blow to her soul brought about vision and dreams in a tool that tubman would later on argue and comment upon and see that this was literally a gift from weve god. That these visions would allow her to leave herself out of slavery as well as many others. Uber the years era meant and began to work in the fields harvesting flak and working other kinds of agriculture and it was backbreaking work. She preferred it to the combine confines of working in the house. Always sort of on the microscopic i of her owner. The house proved hazardous. In ways that the fields did not. Aaron minton became appointed with nature. And she actually learned to love it. She became very familiar with the herbs need it for the healing of wounds for finding of illness. And medical assistance was rarely given to enslaved people but became a very valuable skill set. She also learned the geography of the Eastern Shore of maryland. Her strength and success, and agricultural work allowed her to hie herself out so eventually, estimate sort of moved into a young adulthood, she sort of strikes a deal with their owner. And he had agrees to let her hire herself out. To do this agricultural work and she paced him 50 to 60. A lot of her name. That was in the 19th century. Anything else that she earned, she could keep. And so we think about this sort of active autonomy and figuring out a time he was in the institution of slavery and what to do with that her name she was able to save from working other farms. It is kind of unimaginable. She actually saved that her na name. And she hired a lawyer. This is an enslaved black woman. And who is the 1840s, from the Eastern Shore of maryland raise enough her name, five to 7, in order to pay an attorney. So why would she want to hire a lawyer. She had heard, rumors that there had been some funny business regarding enslavement, the will of one of our former owners. So she made this attorney to find out exactly what the legal scotus was of her family. And the attorney returns after some scaring whatever legal documents were available, and he informs his client she was right. That there had been some funny business. Basically, harriet smothers former owner had agreed to free her mother at the edge of 45. And not only was her mother to be free to 45, any of her children were to be freed as well. This was an odd Eastern Shore of maryland. Join we think about it, theres a significant number of free blocks and insulin people sort of leaving sidebyside. So this is isnt odd that of course the family chose to ignore that portion of the will. So three of harriets sisters had been sold illegally down further south. In harriets mother never received that freedom at the edge of 45. Perhaps this information primed her for what would be the most important journey of her live. After the death of her owner, it was mounting debt, she knew that her owners widow would move to sell slaves quickly and harriet had been ill. She struggled with illness a lot of her live. We dont know about this we dont talk about this because we see her as this kind of symbol of security and strength and courage but she dealt with very real physical maladies so theres been this long. Were she was unable to work and she knew that she would be a target for the option Auction Block. She heard that she and her brothers would be sold and said they actually set out to free themselves ahead of the widow news decision. And so sometime in september of 1849, Harriet Tubman, by then and by this. Shes adopted her mother news name and taken her husband news name as well and her brothers ben and henry, they set off they set off to escape and there in the woods for several weeks and eventually her brothers is scared. And they are hungry and they are tired and the sort of think about this. Its 1849 and we have three enslaved people they are illiterate they cannot theres no compass, and they are attempting to make it to the fifth pennsylvania order. An assumed moment the brothers decided that it would be better to face the consequences of running away. Then to face the unknown. And so they returned to the farm and they literally dragged harriet with them at this moment, harriet makes the decision that she would never let another man make a decision like that for her again. So she returned and then shortly afterwards, she makes a decision to run off on her own at some. In october of 1849. She escapes and we dont of the exact day that she makes it in a pennsylvania border, i was in for those of you who havent seen the harriet failed, this is actually one of the most spoilers here but my one of the most Beautiful Moments in the film. Its join Harriet Tubman makes it to the pennsylvania border. The escape that had outlawed slavery and that was supposedly a free state. You would imagine the beauty and the joy that someone who had traveled almost uber a hundred miles by themselves, wouldve felt at this moment that she actually describes it as something somewhat different she says later on in her narrative, quote there was no one to open to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land in my home after all, is down in maryland because my father if my mother, my brothers and sisters and friends were there. Join i was free. And they should be free. What is freedom mean. Join slavery is intact. It is really at this moment, the moment that she actually supposedly receives freedom. Im using eric was here because we know that the slave laws, this idea of freedom. In any of the states, of the United States that enslaved people were tracked and caught and captured and brought back to the south this was all given the Good Housekeeping stamp of approval by the United States government so there really was no sort of restate in the United States. Join in the minds of the enslaved people, the north was that. She made this decision almost immediately that she would continue to return to maryland. This is one of those myths the people that harriets tubman went all of the south and collecting people. No that is not true. I have been doing a lot of sort of what facts, against the myth these days. But in reality to make 13 trips. To maryland and to baltimore first and then the Eastern Shore. As you do this for uber a decade. She would work in philadelphia and she would save her name working as a domestic and her name that she would need to pay off friends. And a helper elected the Eastern Shore of maryland. So she makes trips repeatedly. In all of them the most part are successful in some ways and she manages to rescue all of her siblings and the exception of one. A sister in the name of rachel. She is trying rescue in the fall of 1860 but join she arrives in maryland, she buys out that rachel had died. She said she saw that as one of her failures on her time in the event. She would also return to rescue her aging parents. So they said one of the things unimaginable untrue or comic book like what is true. She returned and rescued her parents were in their 70s at that moment than rescuing them and bringing them to the north and then later on to canada. Typically harriets live is presented to us as someone as a person who existed only during this tenure time period. During her time in the underground. In a little bit up a lot her service in the civil war. Its as if her live soft. The minute that the civil war began. This is far from true. She would live for another 53 years. So she lived another half of the century after the end of the civil war. This is the story that i tell and that she came to slave. She would of course participate, the first woman to lead a military expedition as a scout tennis by a nurse. She led the famous river raid in june of 1863. That would emancipate uber 700 enslaved people in south carolina. So join i do the numbers, how many people did she actually free, we dont know the exact numbers, we know its close to at least a thousand. In the 1860s, in the 70s, after the war, she would move to rebuild her live. She would marry again. A second time, oh man named milton davis who had been a someone who fought in the civil war. In the colored troops. He was 20 years younger than her so okay harriet. And they live together. That really tried to get out alive. You gotta think about her live after the civil war after slavery. What did you mean out of these people experience a live throat really the failures of reconstruction. In the broken promises and freedom. Tubman unlike her contemporary friend. Douglas, was always poor. She struggled to get by and she never let that get in the way of her activism. She worked for womens suffrage. Not only was the same woman who shepherd about a thousand people or so, to slavery. She later dedicated her live to making certain that women have rights and that women have the right to vote. Something that i think we take very seriously about next year as we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment. She worked with her friends, her old abolitionist friends and new friends. To make certain that women were allowed to cast their ballots and she also thought for the elderly. And active in almost all of the major 19th century movements that we remember today, and so its a privilege to share her story in a way that i hope is accessible and filled with her strengths and her courage. So thank you. Thank you. [applause] and we have a little bit of time for q a. Im really interested to hear of you have seen the film or you have done your own research on tubman, but feel free to raise your hand. We have a mic. Hi. Hi. Thank you so much for your wonderful talk. I really, really enjoyed it. Thank you. And listening to you describe her journey out of slavery, almost unimaginable the courage it would take even today, and i wish should i speak up ill do repeating of the question, too. And i just wanted to know what your thoughts are on our current day situation as far as Race Relations are going, because it is very scary and for someone my age i feel like i have not seen this level of hatred and vitriol. Maybe you can give us some hope. She asked the question that all historians hate to answer, especially those people who like hide in 18th and set 19th cee to deal in the present in a public space because im going there because you asked. Thats what historians get to do. I think one thing that is very timely, both about the presentation of the bionic of harriet and the book, i think all of us are looking for leadership. Right . And harriet embodied that leadership in a very sort of quiet, underground way. Right . She knew when she said later on, she said actually, in the 1850s and 60s the an way slavery would end was a war. She knew that it was going to take something huge to move the needle on the major social justice issue of the 19th 19th century and that was enslavement. And she, by sort of removing people one at a time or handful at a time, in the book i say its similar to trying to clear a beach, one grain of san sand at a time but she did her part. But she new it would take something much bigger, much stronger, more forcele. Im hoping this is a moment where we can look to someone like a tubman, and there are many other examples of 19th 19th century freedom fighters, who risked their lives continually to fight for what was right. Right . To stand up, not to simply say to make a statement, but she literally walked back into the jaws of slavery every time she returned to maryland. And that was more than we see most people do in these days when theyre standing up for anything, whether its social justice issues around the environment or around incarceration. So i think really what we can do with this moment of remembering and commemorating someone like tubman is to draw from the strength and realize well have to put ourselves in uncomfortable positions, in order to remove the problems of the day, whether they be on in the white house, or in other places. You also wrote a wonderful book about a woman named ona judge and i was wondering could you talk about other challenges about writing about a lesser known figure and a popular figure like Harriet Tubman. A great question. I wrote another little book called never caught which came out a couple of year others and focused on an enslaved woman named ona judge who wases on by george and Martha Washington and it was but her escape to new england. I worked on that book for a really long time in part because ona judges story was very sort of not known very well. And because she was a fugitive for the entirety of her life, unlike harriet, it meant she wanted to be hidden and she wanted her story for the most part to not be told, until the very end of their life, she gave two interviews, thank you, lord, theres a source from her. So in many ways, presenting that story, id argue, it wasnt easier or more difficult. It was just different because it was presenting a nonfiction and historical account about another fugitive but whom we knew very little. Writing about tubman was daunting in a different way because there are multiple biographs about tubman and the first question i had to ask myself is what i could lend to this conversation, what would she came to slay bring to the story of tubman that was somewhat different. The first id argue i believe im the first black woman to publish a biography on tubman with a different lens so im bringing a blend as a black woman historian. And thats no disrespeak to eye biographers. Theyve done brilliant work who i was in conversation with about this text, about its one who studies the lives of enslaved women, and someone who centers the experiences of fugitives, it felt natural this would be sort of my next project, and what i tried to do with this book was to make it accessible, but to also sort of think about tubman, araminta, minty in a multifaceted way. She was a girl, she was a young woman, she was a woman who was in love. In maryland and then later on. She was a woman who dealt with heartbreak when she returned to maryland, we see this film a little different in the film but it is its hollywood. Still beautiful, black love is great, but it was somewhat different harriet tells a different story, when she returns to maryland to help basically bring already free husband, john tubman, with her, to philadelphia, she arrives in maryland, goes into hiding almost immediately, and sends word that she has arrived. And he wants no part of her and sends a message doesnt even see her. Sends a message and says i dont want to see you. Ive remarried. And she is a free woman. So this is a moment where it differs a little bit from the film. I think the film does a good job of showing and talking about black love, even under the institution of slavery, but in reality, harriet she reports that she was sad but that turned to fury, quickly. This is a woman she was like, wait, what . I just traveled how far think about this really. I just walked back into slavery. 100 however many miles, in hiding, to come get you, and you dont want me anymore . Thats one of the things i want us to think about. Tubman as a woman facing rejection. After she has put her life she says she wants to go to his cabin and basically i wont say that but basically turn it out. She wanted to see him and her. Right . But she knows she cant do that. She cant have unwanted attention. She is a fugitive and so she makes a digs, he let me go so i had to let him go and turns her attention to the others who she could save. So thats an example i highlight. That in the text because it makes us remember that tubman was a warrior and she was a woman, a wife, experienced loss, in ways that we can all relate to. I wanted to bring tubman into the 21st century and for us all to be able to think about her as a warrior and also as a woman. Hi. Thank you so much for talking with us today. Read never caught earlier this year and i loved it, an exciting read and im thrilled to read oshe came to slay. When i think but harriet and her escape and her many journeys to and from maryland, i think but how different the Eastern Shore is from other parts of maryland im more familiar with. Baltimore, and also a smaller but still pretty damn big farm near baltimore, slaveholding farm which is on the site of where me and my friend went for college. Think about the size of farms and plantations there the planter culture there. What does it take to escape the Eastern Shore, a very different site of slavery than baltimore or maryland. Thats a great question. Think one of the things tubmans story allows us to do is to complicate slavery and to break down the mythic notion of plantations with hundreds of slaves everywhere. That was not the case on the Eastern Shore of maryland that most people functioned in smaller farming units, and because of that, the intimacy and the surveillance i would argue was much more rigid, and it would also mean that i think theres some comparisons between baltimore and the Eastern Shore in there theres a sizable number of free blacks living beside enslaved people, and this becomes super important when we think about the underground. We know that this is part of the conversation about abolitionism. Well know that free blacks are at the center of the abolitionist movement. Of course, we all of that but on the ground, the people who are opening up their barns and leaving plates of food, people who are leaving horses and wagons to help other people escape. Those in many ways were there was a significant quaker population in the Eastern Shore of maryland as well as free blacks, and so i think, thinking but slavery through the lens of tubman helps us remove the gone with the winding mic underring of slavery and think about it more on this smaller scale and how difficult that was to emancipate yourself from that kind of insular community. Good question. Thank you. I think unfortunately thats all the time we have for questions. So were going to the book is for sale at the table. Is this the first event for the book . Sure. Its the first event for the book. First among the first. Month the first. Bit do please buy the book. Erica will be signing here and stick around in just a couple of minutes well launch into our panel for baltimore revisited. Thank you. [applause] heres a look at authors who have appeared or will be appear soon on after words, the weekly Author Interview program. Recently New York Times contributing opinion writer lindy west discusses the metoo movement. Coming up, university of maryland Baltimore County president , freeman robowski will share his thoughts but building a high achieving and innovative university. And this weekend, joe rickets offering his insights to becoming an troy entrepreneur and founding tv ameritrade. I had to say, be ready to fail. Be ready to lose all of your dreams and start over. And in fact ive get a website, entrepreneurs great jobs. Com and one of the entrepreneurs in that website that i interview says, entrepreneurs are different. We fail and when we do we get back on the horse. So, as an entrepreneur you have to understand that eight out of ten new businesses fail. And that your risk is really quite high. If that happens and youre really an entrepreneur you get back up and you try again. After words airs saturdays at 10 00 p. M. And sundays at 9 00 p. M. Eastern and pacific. On booktv on cspan 2. 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