“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”- Harriet Tubman (Harriet Tubman Timeline). African Americans of the 18th and 19th centuries remained commodities to their white masters. They suffered the consequences of the North and South’s inability to agree on the continuation of slavery. Harriet Tubman was most famous as a fearless contributor to the abolitionist movement. She possessed a dream for herself and the 3.2 million slaves in the United States, that slavery will no longer control their lives. Harriet Tubman’s life was dedicated to the pursuit of civil rights, by her conducting the biggest transportation system …show more content…
Many women who acted passionately to end slavery later went on to fight for female liberties. The ending of slavery inspired women, including Harriet Tubman, to pursue their civil rights. As a woman who had fought for her own freedom and the freedom of others, Tubman set to work by touring and giving speeches about her own experiences as a female slave and as the liberator of hundreds born under the bondage of slavery (Harriet Tubman Timeline). After the Union’s victory of the Civil War in 1865, her focus expanded on equality for African Americans to equality for women. Tubman began to travel to New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C. to speak out in favor of women's voting rights (Harriet Tubman and Women’s Rights). When the National Federation of Afro-American Women, or NFAAW was founded in 1896, Tubman was the keynote speaker at its first meeting (Harriet Tubman and Women’s Rights). This group targeted young African American women to be more aware of their value as a person and as a woman. Sojourner Truth, a powerful poet and activist, was among the women who supported Tubman. Tubman believed in the equality of all people, black or white, male or female. Also, her experience as a slave in the south furthered her appeal to the women’s rights movement. She committed herself to work towards women’s suffrage with friend Susan B. Anthony in 1881 up until the beginning of the 1900’s. Harriet Tubman died in 1913. She never enjoyed the fruits of her labor after the 19th amendment that allowed women to vote was issued in 1920 (Harriet Tubman