Current:Home > StocksBook excerpt: "Night Flyer," the life of abolitionist Harriet Tubman -AssetPath
Book excerpt: "Night Flyer," the life of abolitionist Harriet Tubman
View
Date:2025-04-15 22:26:51
We may receive an affiliate commission from anything you buy from this article.
National Book Award-winning author Tiya Miles explores the history and mythology of a remarkable woman in "Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People" (Penguin).
Read an excerpt below.
"Night Flyer" by Tiya Miles
$24 at AmazonPrefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now.
Try Audible for freeDelivery is an art form. Harriet must have recognized this as she delivered time and again on her promise to free the people. Plying the woods and byways, she pretended to be someone she was not when she encountered enslavers or hired henchmen—an owner of chickens, or a reader, or an elderly woman with a curved spine, or a servile sort who agreed that her life should be lived in captivity. Each interaction in which Harriet convinced an enemy that she was who they believed her to be—a Black person properly stuck in their place—she was acting. Performance—gauging what an audience might want and how she might deliver it—became key to Harriet Tubman's tool kit in the late 1850s and early 1860s. In this period, when she had not only to mislead slave catchers but also to convince enslaved people to trust her with their lives, and antislavery donors to trust her with their funds, Tubman polished her skills as an actor and a storyteller. Many of the accounts that we now have of Tubman's most eventful moments were told by Tubman to eager listeners who wrote things down with greater or lesser accuracy. In telling these listeners certain things in particular ways, Tubman always had an agenda, or more accurately, multiple agendas that were at times in competition. She wanted to inspire hearers to donate cash or goods to the cause. She wanted to buck up the courage of fellow freedom fighters. She wanted to convey her belief that God was the engine behind her actions. And in her older age, in the late 1860s through the 1880s, she wanted to raise money to purchase and secure a haven for those in need.
There also must have been creative and egoistic desires mixed in with Harriet's motives. She wanted to be the one to tell her own story. She wanted recognition for her accomplishments even as she attributed them to God. She wanted to control the narrative that was already in formation about her life by the end of the 1850s. And she wanted to be a free agent in word as well as deed.
From "Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People" by Tiya Miles. Reprinted by arrangement with Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2024 by Tiya Miles.
Get the book here:
"Night Flyer" by Tiya Miles
$24 at Amazon $30 at Barnes & NobleBuy locally from Bookshop.org
For more info:
- "Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People" by Tiya Miles (Penguin), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats
- tiyamiles.com
veryGood! (93729)
Related
- Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie return for an 'Encore,' reminisce about 'The Simple Life'
- 'Emily in Paris': How the Netflix comedy gets serious with a 'complex' Me Too story
- Violent crime is rapidly declining. See which cities are seeing drops in homicides.
- Walmart boosts its outlook for 2024 with bargains proving a powerful lure for the inflation weary
- Grammy nominee Teddy Swims on love, growth and embracing change
- State, local officials failed 12-year-old Pennsylvania girl who died after abuse, lawsuits say
- Video shows 2 toddlers in diapers, distraught in the middle of Texas highway after crash
- What Conservation Coalitions Have Learned from an Aspen Tree
- Which apps offer encrypted messaging? How to switch and what to know after feds’ warning
- Usher Cancels Atlanta Concert Hours Before Show to Rest and Heal
Ranking
- The Daily Money: Spending more on holiday travel?
- What to stream: Post Malone goes country, Sydney Sweeney plays a nun and Madden 25 hits the field
- David Hasselhoff Is a Grandpa, Daughter Taylor Welcomes First Baby With Madison Fiore
- Collin Gosselin Says He Was Discharged from the Marines Due to Being Institutionalized by Mom Kate
- How to watch the 'Blue Bloods' Season 14 finale: Final episode premiere date, cast
- Oklahoma city approves $7M settlement for man wrongfully imprisoned for decades
- Collin Gosselin Says He Was Discharged from the Marines Due to Being Institutionalized by Mom Kate
- Georgia mayor faces felony charges after investigators say he stashed alcohol in ditch for prisoners
Recommendation
A White House order claims to end 'censorship.' What does that mean?
Clint Eastwood's Son Scott Shares How Family Is Doing After Death of Christina Sandera
'Alien: Romulus' movie review: Familiar sci-fi squirms get a sheen of freshness
Love Is Blind's Alexa Lemieux Gives Birth, Welcomes First Baby With Husband Brennon
Jorge Ramos reveals his final day with 'Noticiero Univision': 'It's been quite a ride'
Iran police shot a woman while trying to seize her car over hijab law violation, activists say
A teen was falling asleep during a courtroom field trip. She ended up in cuffs and jail clothes
Jim Harbaugh wants to hire Colin Kaepernick to Chargers' coaching staff. Will the QB bite?