Written by Kristen Hampshire
Photography by Jill Jasuta
By retracing Harriet Tubman’s route to freedom, Linda Harris discovered a calling rooted in movement, music, history and connection.
As Linda Harris walked more than 150 miles in the footsteps of Harriet Tubman along the Underground Railroad, supporters along the way offered food, money and encouragement. Social media followers and news media documented the journey as well.
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The Call To Walk
Before the walk, Linda had already lived several lives. She retired in 2019 after 33 years in real estate development and management, helping apartment-building owners in distressed areas purchase properties and form cooperatives in the Washington, D.C., area.
When she retired, Linda planned to focus on music. “I wanted to become a musician and singer,” she says. She began piano lessons, studied at the New York Jazz Academy and traveled to New Orleans. Then came two international performance opportunities. But both were abruptly canceled because of the pandemic.
Her reaction to lockdown was movement.
“My response to COVID was not sheltering in place, but getting out and walking,” she says.
As streets emptied, she walked more. One night in 2020, watching coverage of George Floyd, everything shifted. “It startled me for the first time in my life,” Linda says. “I felt like he was my relative—my brother, my cousin.”
Her father had given her a children’s book when she was 10. That night, it seemed to glow on the bookshelf, she says. “It was called ‘A Runaway Slave,’ and it was about Harriet Tubman,” she relates. “I thought, this is some kind of sign.”
Linda had never been to Cambridge. Still, she felt compelled to go.
“I felt the spirit of Harriet Tubman and the ancestors as soon as I crossed the bridge,” Linda recalls. “Something extraordinary happened.”
Miles of Reckoning
At first, Linda decided she would walk the Underground Railroad route on her own. Then she reconsidered, mainly due to safety concerns. The decision to open the walk up to other determined women ultimately opened doors for those moved by her mission to join the journey.
Linda trained throughout the summer of 2020, steadily increasing distance. “One day I walked 20 miles,” she says. “I was increasing by 10 percent every day.”
She posted on Facebook asking if anyone wanted to walk with her. Twenty women responded. The group eventually became seven and in September 2020, they set out.
“We walked 20 miles a day for eight days,” Linda says, relating how the women formed a common bond and came from all walks of life. Linda, then 65, was the oldest. Among them were attorneys, a college professor and a nurse. “We said we were walking off our woes.”
They kept journals. They moved through farmland, small towns, stretches of beauty and moments of threat.
On day two, they stopped in a field to rest. Two men approached with shotguns. “They called me ‘gal’ and told us to move right now,” Linda says. As the women walked away, the men followed in their truck, hurling racial slurs.
“It was terrifying,” Linda says. “Even when you do what you think are all the right things, bad things can happen.”
Another encounter came with police intimidation. “The officer had his hand on his holster,” she says. “I said, ‘Why do you have your hand on your gun?’”
Each incident clarified the present-day stakes of a historic walk. “It took me out of my bubble,” Linda says. “It changed me so much.”
Being Carried
By day four of “We Walk With Harriet,” Linda was exhausted and unsure whether she could continue. Early that morning, she splashed cold water on her face. “I looked in the mirror, and I saw Harriet Tubman’s face,” she says.
Linda, who habitually meditates to center herself, was in awe of the vision encouraging her from a hotel bathroom. “The instruction was to get up and get this done,” she says.
The final days felt guided. “I felt like I could hear horses’ hooves,” she says of being transported back into history, back to Harriet Tubman’s walk. “I felt as if horses were carrying us and making certain that we finished.”
Along the route, strangers appeared with water, money, meals and motivation. A truck driver pulled over to recommend ice cream and insisted they take cash. At Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, a crowd waited. “People were cheering for us,” Linda says, reliving a sense of joy shared among the women walkers and those supporting the journey.
By the time the walk ended, “We Walk With Harriet” had amassed thousands of social media followers. News coverage followed. More importantly, connections were forged and continue growing today.
Stewarding the Story
Today, Linda shares history through both movement and music. A jazz vocalist, she performs “Songs of Freedom,” researching and singing spirituals once used as coded communication during enslavement.
“When we do the walks for the museum, we do musical narrations,” she says. “We sing the code songs.”
Her husband, musician David B. Cole, joins with banjo. Together, they offer guided history walks paired with songs. Last year, they led 79 walks; the year before, 175.
Meanwhile, at the Harriet Tubman Museum & Educational Center, Linda joins Director Bill Jarmon in helping bring the historic walk indoors. After a flood forced the museum to close temporarily, she saw an opportunity.
“I saw the empty museum and thought, let’s recreate the Underground Railroad inside of our museum,” she relates.
In collaboration with artist Michael Rosato, plans include immersive walls depicting Harriet Tubman’s journey, soil underfoot, a narrated history, music and lighting, including falling stars inspired by the meteor shower Tubman described as a spiritual sign. Rosato painted the museum’s exterior mural, a visual representation of Tubman’s 1854 journey north.
The back of the museum will house a “story room” with Linda sharing perspective and history while inviting visitors to share and connect.
Reflecting on the walk that led Linda to this Cambridge destination, she says: “This is the most beautiful, amazing work at this point in my life.”
And Linda continues to walk, sing, teach and guide, carrying the past forward step by step.
“It really was a miracle,” she says. CS
“When we do the walks for the museum, we do musical narrations. We sing the code songs… This is the most beautiful, amazing work at this point in my life.”
— LINDA HARRIS
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