Harriet Tubman Legacy Speaker Series

Carolina Raptor Center's annual Harriet Tubman Legacy Speaker Series celebrates diverse individuals in the field of conservation.

This year's Harriet Tubman Legacy Speaker is Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander, historian, author, and Endowed Professor of Virginia Black History and Culture and the former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Norfolk State University. Together with the Charlotte Museum of History and Levine Museum of the New South, the Carolina Raptor Center is hosting Dr. Newby-Alexander for a presentation on Harriet Tubman and the Importance of Swamps for Freedom Seekers.

This event will take place at the Quest Nature Center in Huntersville, NC. The program will begin at 10 AM on Saturday, March 8, with an hour-long presentation followed by time for questions. Tickets include access to the presentation, light refreshments, and same-day admission to the Carolina Raptor Center's Raptor Trail.

Presentation Description:

Harriet Tubman is a historical figure with a significant connection to the natural world. Her expertise with her environment, including using the call of a Barred Owl, allowed her to guide approximately 300 enslaved African Americans to freedom in the 1800s.

Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander will present on Harriet Tubman's understanding and utilization of the natural world during her time as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. Particular attention will be paid to discussing the Swamps from Maryland to South Carolina and their importance in the successful efforts by freedom seekers to create a safe and free space for themselves or as a way to secure freedom aboard ships bound for the North. Some of the swamps discussed will include the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge (a marshland that spanned one million acres across eastern Virginia and North Carolina), Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland (a 28,000 acre swamp), and the Combahee River (once a 236,000 acres of rice fields spanning 160 miles).

About Dr. Newby-Alexander:

Cassandra L. Newby-Alexander, Ph.D. is the Endowed Professor of Virginia Black History and Culture and the former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Norfolk State University. She is the author of numerous books and articles Virginia Waterways and the Underground Railroad (2017) and An African American History of the Civil War in Hampton Roads (2010). Dr. Newby-Alexander has received grants totaling over $1.5 million that has funded research and public programs. In addition to her grant and scholarly activities, Newby-Alexander was the co-chair of the Virginia Commission on African American History Education in the Commonwealth, a member of the Virginia Commission to Study Slavery and Subsequent De Jure and De Facto Racial and Economic Discrimination Against African Americans, the University of Virginia Press Board, Virginia Law Foundation, the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Portsmouth’s VA250 Committee, Norfolk’s VA250 Committee, and the Commission to Study the Uprooting of Black Communities by Public Institutions of Higher Education in the Commonwealth.

Dr. Newby-Alexander has appeared on numerous national programs and documentaries including NBC’s Nightly News on the descendants of slaveholders, PBS’s Many Rivers to Cross, C-SPAN’s Lectures in History series on the Underground Railroad, C-SPAN’s “African Americans in Hampton Roads, Virginia” for the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies Conference, the History Channel’s Race, Slavery and the Civil War, and lectures on African American History. She has appeared on BBC News’ “The British Role in America’s Tainted Past,” Clay Jenkinson’s ”Listening to America,” #1607, The Underground Railroad podcast, and Roland Martin’s podcast. She has been frequently quoted in numerous national newspapers and magazines including the Washington Post, USA Today, The Richmond Times Dispatch, the Virginian Pilot, the Voice of America, Essence, and the Christian Science Monitor.