How to Explore Harriet Tubman’s Legacy in Greater Philadelphia

Philadelphia is the city where famed abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman found her freedom — making it the perfect place to celebrate her exceptional life.

Celebrating an American Legend

For three months in 2022, an evocative, nine-foot sculpture, entitled Harriet Tubman – The Journey to Freedom, stood on the north apron of Philadelphia’s City Hall. Created by Wofford Sculpture Studio, the traveling monument represented Tubman’s work to free hundreds of enslaved people.

The statue proved so popular during its visit to Philadelphia that the city’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy has commissioned a larger, permanent statue of Tubman that will soon become part of the city’s permanent public art collection.

  — Photo by Visit Philadelphia

Who Was Harriet Tubman?

Powerful, determined, fearless and strategic are just some of the adjectives that can be used to describe Harriet Tubman, the woman who never lost a single passenger.

Tubman’s work to free enslaved people of African descent is not legend or fable. It is work she did to negate a horrible existence in a land that was created in the name of freedom.

Tubman set out on these dangerous expeditions north because of the fierce love she had for her people, and her grit kept her moving forward during every perilous journey.

Why Celebrate In Philadelphia?

Philadelphia, the birthplace of our nation and site of so many revolutions, is a fitting place to honor Harriet Tubman. It’s a place where people of African descent, both free and enslaved, fought vigorously for freedom from the early days of the nation’s founding.

Many Philadelphia men and women have worked diligently in the quest for social justice and civil rights.

Among them: Cecil B. Moore, Reverend Leon Sullivan, C. Dolores Tucker and Octavius Catto, a 19th-century civil rights crusader whose life and legacy is immortalized in a statue on the southwest side of City Hall.

The statue of Octavius V. Catto outside City Hall in Philadelphia   — Photo by A. Rogers for the Association for Public Art

Philadelphia’s African American History & Culture

The Philadelphia region is filled with landmarks that tell of the successes, struggles and contributions of African Americans through the centuries, including:

• Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church, the “Mother” church of the nation’s first Black denomination where Tubman once delivered remarks
• Johnson House Historic Site, a refuge for freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad; African American Museum in Philadelphia, preserving, interpreting and exhibiting the heritage and culture of African Americans
• The Colored Girls Museum, housing original art by Black women and girls
• Museum of the American Revolution, telling the story of the Revolutionary War, including the African American experience
• The President’s House, an open-air site that includes structural fragments of the home where President Washington confined nine enslaved Africans

Outside of Philadelphia, a waterfront memorial to Harriet Tubman’s life and legacy stands in Bucks County at 150 Basin Park in Bristol. Click here for more information about Philadelphia’s Underground Railroad connections and here for more about Philadelphia’s African American cultural and historical sites.

The exterior of Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church, where Tubman once delivered remarks   — Photo by P. Meyer for Visit Philadelphia