Man Honors Harriet Tubman By Walking 400+ Miles Along Underground Railroad

Photo: Getty Images

A Philadelphia man walks over 400 miles along the path of the Underground Railroad to honor Harriet Tubman. In honor of the 200th anniversary of Tubman’s birthday, Kenneth Johnston walked from New York City to Canada along a route that Tubman herself walked in 1851. The walk is a continuation of earlier walks the 61-year-old made in previous years retracing other routes Tubman used to go back and forth helping to free slaves as part of the Underground Railroad network.

Johnston calls himself a “walking artist” and uses walking as an art practice and a way to understand historical stories. He started his latest walk at the Harriet Tubman Memorial in Harlem then headed to Rochester where he paid a visit to the grave of Fredrick Douglas before continuing on to St. Catharines, Ontario, where Tubman lived for most of the 1850s.

His final stop on the nearly 450-mile trek was the Salem Chapel British Methodist Episcopal Church in St. Catherines, which was built in 1855 and was where Tubman worshiped during her time living in Canada. He says the last few miles were the hardest, “It was hot … I was pretty exhausted when I got here.” Johnston is proud to have walked the same path that Tubman and so many others followed to gain their freedom, saying, “It's really exciting to make the complete journey she traveled."

Source: People


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