Tubman movie has history watchers excited — and a little wary
Curious over how Hollywood will handle Underground Railroad icon’s time in Niagara
Hopes are high — but fingers remain crossed — among people anxious to see an upcoming biopic on Underground Railroad icon Harriet Tubman.
The movie, titled “Harriet,” is due for release Nov. 1 and tells the life story of Tubman, who famously escaped slavery and later guided other black people to freedom before the U.S. Civil War.
Tubman spent most of her 30s living in St. Catharines, from about 1850 to 1860, and did much of her Underground Railroad work in that time.
How Tubman — and specifically, St. Catha
rines and Niagara — will be portrayed is the big question.
“When I first saw (the trailer released this week), my reaction was, will it be authentic and accurate? Because a lot of people are taking black history now and coming up with whatever,” says Lezlie Harper.
She operates Niagara Bound Tours, which takes visitors to different places important to black history in Niagara.
Curious about the movie, she says she turned to her “go-to” connection, American author and historian Kate Clifford Larson.
“She’s already seen a screening, because she was involved in writing the script,” says Harper. “She has seen it and says it was very well done, considering they only had two hours to tell this woman’s story.
“There were a couple of moments where she winced but that happens with this history, so that’s not too bad. I’m quite excited about it, actually.”
Harper hasn’t heard how much acknowledgment is given to Tubman’s decade in St. Catharines.
“If they tell this story without including Canada, and specifically St. Catharines, then it’s not historically accurate,” says Rochelle Bush, a trustee and historian at the Salem Chapel BME Church on Geneva Street in St. Catharines, where Tubman herself worshipped.
She says many tourists who visit the church aren’t aware that Tubman crossed the border and brought black people to freedom in Canada (known at the time as British North America). Many believe she stopped in a northern city, like New York or Philadelphia.
Tubman had no other choice, though, after the Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1850. That allowed bounty hunters to abduct free former slaves on northern soil and return them to bondage in the south.
There is some question as to how many people Tubman brought to freedom. Scholarly research says 60 to 70, but a biography written in the late 1860s suggests it could be as many as 300.
Tubman, who was believed to be 91 when she died (records are sketchy), returned to the U.S. when the Civil War started in 1861 and worked as a spy and guide for the Northern army.
She died in Auburn, N.Y., in 1913.
A spokesman for Focus Features, the distributor, did not respond to a request for comment.
Bush says any depiction of Tubman’s life would “absolutely not” be accurate if it minimized, or even ignored, her life in St. Catharines.
“This is when she was Moses. This is when she was an Underground Railroad conductor,” Bush says.
“So those she was guiding to freedom, she was guiding them here to St. Catharines.”
Either way, she says, “the movie is justly deserved. It should have happened a long time ago.”
Harper, whose great-greatgrandfather escaped slavery in Kentucky and later settled in Fort Erie, agrees.
“I feel incredibly grateful that (Tubman) is the one who came to the top of the food chain when it came to the Underground Railroad and black history,” she says.
“The deeper you dig in her life, the better she comes out. There’s no scandal, no trashiness. She was very faith-based. I hope that comes through.
“And she was a humble woman. Very philanthropic.”
Bush says she is optimistic the movie will be entertaining and accurate.
“I’m looking forward to it. Can’t wait,” she says. “But even if it doesn’t happen, at least they made a movie about Tubman. But I will squawk, for sure.”