Would Harriet Tubman Still Be Praised as a Modern Abolitionist? Progressives Learn the Truth at a Pro-Life Rally

A Christian group recently convinced some liberals in Philadelphia into thinking they would be attending a rally about placing Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, rather than an event where the theme was equal protection under the law for everyone, including the unborn. 

The Daily Wire reports for ten months, members of the Free The States, a Christian organization dedicated to the immediate abolition of abortion, distributed more than a half-million of the group's "Tubman 20's" across the U.S.  The bill's artwork featured Tubman holding a pistol and a lantern.  The reverse of the small flyer included a graphic of the burning of Pennsylvania Hall, the headquarters of Philadelphia's slavery abolition movement.  

The building was burned to the ground by a mob four days after it was opened in May of 1838. 

These were on our door this morning. #tubman20 pic.twitter.com/3tHjzX4UXp

— Christian Reed-Ogba (@OGchrisO) October 19, 2020

The bill also invited people to view a website called Tubman20.com, where an in-person and live-streamed rally would be held on Aug. 1 at the former site of Pennsylvania Hall. 

T. Russell Hunter, Free The States founder, addressed the rally and explained that even though abolitionists who opposed slavery are honored as heroes today, history reveals they were despised by many Americans in the years leading up to the Civil War. 

"Harriet Tubman is popular today," Hunter told the crowd. "Her abolitionist friends are popular today. You can watch PBS documentaries about the abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass … But when Harriet Tubman was living in this city, she was an outlaw. People tried to chase her down."

He then noted it was Tubman's faith in Jesus Christ that drove her to boldly push for the end of slavery.

"Harriet Tubman — and these men and women in the abolitionist movement — rejected all compromise with slavery. They demanded its total and immediate abolition," Hunter said. "These abolitionists not only argued that slavery was evil, but they argued that gradual abolition was evil. They spent as much time arguing with moderate anti-slavery gradualists as they did arguing against slavery itself."

"Here's the point. Does our culture truly support Harriet Tubman?" he asked the audience. "Do we appreciate people like Harriet Tubman, or do we treat abolitionists of today in the way we treated abolitionists of the past?"

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Hunter explained that Free The States agrees with Tubman's approach in tackling a problem. 

"We find ourselves in a similar situation today among a similar people," he pointed out. "Chattel slavery is no longer legal; it has been abolished. The Supreme Court no longer prohibits individuals or states from helping those in bondage. However, the federal government, every state government, and the majority of the population totally, emphatically, and unquestionably protects the Supreme Court-sanctioned evil of our own age… I am talking about the evil of human abortion and the movement to abolish it."

As soon as Hunter mentioned abortion, roughly one-quarter of attendees left, according to The Daily Wire. 

Some of these folks that leave, that don't want to hear us out — they don't realize that they are treating us just the same way as they treated the abolitionists of an earlier age," he said as he continued his remarks. "They were willing to celebrate abolitionists like Harriet Tubman until someone said, 'You agree with her then, but you would not agree with her now.'"

"We believe that these children ought to be rescued from being taken away to death. Like her, we believe that we should not live for ourselves, but we should live for others. Like her, we believe in and follow Christ. We believe that He leads the abolitionist cause and that His gospel is the answer to abortion," Hunter continued. 

Hunter told The Daily Wire it was interesting to see who left the event and who stayed to listen. 

"Almost all the white liberals stormed off in anger when the rally switched gears," he said. "But nearly no black people left. Many of them stayed for more than thirty minutes after the rally was over to talk about abolitionism and have me sign their bills. Our message resonated strongly with them."

"Our culture thinks they like Harriet Tubman, but that's only because they have created a false, secularized version of her," Hunter continued. "She was a Bible-quoting, gun-toting, evangelical Christian abolitionist who trusted in God's providence above all else. Tubman was the furthest thing from a modern leftist."

But he pointed out that Tubman would not label herself as a pro-life Republican. 

"Tubman demanded slavery's total and immediate abolition. She told Lincoln, 'Never wound a snake. Kill it.' She supported nullifying tyrannical fugitive slave laws. She supported immediatism, nullification, and many more of the principles pro-life leaders argue against when they oppose abolition bills," Hunter told the website. 

"Because of this, we set out to teach the culture about immediatism, nullification, and — most importantly — the gospel of Jesus Christ that animated Harriet Tubman," he said.