Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People

"In this country, Harriet Tubman is practically a pop culture icon at this point. She was an escaped slave who very bravely turned around and became a key part of the Underground Railroad, rescuing as many as 80 slaves and getting them to the North or to Canada. Many books have been written about her, from books for children to full-fledged biographies. Miles was interested in something different; she’s interested in Tubman’s spirituality. Tubman was very religious, and her conception of God was such that God was there alongside her, helping her and protecting her. This hasn’t been written about much. The problem is that Harriet Tubman did not write about herself. While she was alive, she dictated her life to a number of women who were mostly white, middle- to upper-class abolitionists. So her life is interpreted through them. There’s nothing direct from Tubman about how she felt about her faith. I should back up and say that Miles is really well-versed in the lives of enslaved women. She has written other books on the topic. So, like Strouse, she already knew the territory. She went to texts about other Black women of that era who were very spiritual—primarily preachers—and took their words and tried to shape them in a way that would reflect Tubman’s faith. So it’s not a fully-fledged biography; to me it reads more like an extended essay on the faith that these women had, how it sustained them. Miles’s deep reservoir of knowledge really carries it along. Absolutely."