Path to Greatness
\r\nWhat starts someone on the path to greatness? In the case of Harriet Tubman, it was a two-pound lead weight.
\r\nAt the age of thirteen, Harriet had her first experience in helping a slave escape. One evening in the late Fall she saw Jim, one of slaves, slip away to the village store without permission. Harriet watched in dread as the overseer followed Jim. She quickly decided to make a dash through the fields ahead of the supervisor so she could warn the slave.
\r\nIn the tense confrontation that ensued, the overseer commanded the sturdily built Harriet to help restrain Jim so he could be whipped. Harriet refused, and then bravely blocked the door with her own body so that Jim could make a getaway. The enraged overseer yanked a two-pound lead weight from the store's scales and hurled it in Jim's direction. He missed his target, though, and the weight struck Harriet's forehead. She crumpled to the floor as though dead. The impact fractured her skull and created a great convex dent.
\r\nHarriet remained in a life-threatening delirium for months, and never fully recovered from the injury. But the lead weight did not stop her. It only strengthened her determination to fight the injustices of slavery.
\r\nIn the decade that followed, Harriet Tubman risked her life helping over 300 Maryland slaves escape to freedom, deservedly becoming known as the "Moses of her people."
\r\nCompiled From:
\r\n "Harriet Tubman" - Rebecca Price Janney, p. 18