Your Kids Should Learn About Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman’s life teaches us that sometimes it’s worth risking everything for justice and goodness. In a world that values safety and comfort, we need reminders that real change in society rarely comes from behind a keyboard.

Crossway’s growing series of middle-grade biographies includes figures like Martin Luther, Katie Luther, John Bunyan, and Corrie ten Boom. Though we know less about Tubman’s theology than that of any other figures in the series, by all accounts she was driven by faith in Christ to risk her freedom and her life to lead others out of slavery.

Shar Walker’s addition to the series, The Story of Harriet Tubman: The Trailblazer Who Led Many to Freedom, is an exciting, age-appropriate celebration of an American hero. I was delighted to interview Walker about her book.

Why should Christians learn about Harriet Tubman?

Harriet did extraordinary things, but she was also a deeply ordinary woman. Her life is relatable because she stood at the bottom of the social order of her day. She was black, a woman, and a person living with a disability that stemmed from a brain injury she received from a slave owner.

Anyone who has ever felt invisible, unimportant, or unsure whether their life matters in God’s redemptive plan will likely find pieces of themselves in her story. In her own society—and even in ours today—she would probably be the last person we’d expect to shape history or advance God’s kingdom. Yet her life closely mirrors the men and women of Scripture—like Ruth, Daniel and his friends, and Esther—whose quiet, ordinary faithfulness believers still seek to follow.

Based on your research, how would you describe Tubman’s faith?

I think it’s important to recognize that Harriet’s expression of faith may not have looked like ours. She couldn’t read or write, so she didn’t have a traditional “quiet time.” While enslaved, her time wasn’t her own, and she had little space to study theology in formal ways. 

This also meant her faith was not theoretical or overly intellectual. I would describe it as contemplative and, at times, even mystical—something she saw through visions and symbols and heard through liturgy and song, rather than something she primarily read on a page.

Harriet did extraordinary things, but she was also a deeply ordinary woman.

Her faith isn’t something we can neatly chart like our own, partly because of the limited firsthand accounts of her life that we have access to today. A few things we know with certainty: She communed with God through prayer and music, later became a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and is believed to have referenced Jesus’s promise to prepare a place in heaven for believers (John 14:2–3) in her final living moments. Most clearly, her actions often aligned with Christlike orthopraxy. The exact details of her theological convictions, however, remain something of a mystery.

How did you balance the need to be clear about the brutality of race-based chattel slavery with the challenges of writing for a young audience? Why do you think it’s important to help 21st-century kids understand the evil of slavery in America?

My goal was to tell the truth in a way that was clear and age-appropriate, while still acknowledging the real suffering inflicted through race-based chattel slavery. I wanted to be honest without becoming unnecessarily graphic or overwhelming.

It took some work to strike a good balance. Too much detail about the trauma of slavery may have distracted from the heroine of the story, but too little might have left readers unsure why her actions mattered or how extraordinary they truly were.

Helping children understand this part of our nation’s history equips them to be thoughtful observers and wise interpreters of their world. I often think of it like medicine: A doctor would never make a diagnosis without first understanding a patient’s history, and the same is true for a nation. Our past helps explain, in part, many of the race-based realities we see today, including how race-based chattel slavery played a foundational role in access to opportunity and generational wealth; it even shaped the physical layout of cities.

What did you learn while researching Tubman’s life that surprised you the most?

I had two aha moments as I studied Harriet’s life. The first was how deeply she loved and cherished her family. I believe this was her earliest motivation to fight for freedom. She certainly knew slavery was wrong and longed to see others freed, but at the beginning, she simply wanted to be reunited with the people she loved. Only later did she realize she was uniquely gifted for this work and continued rescuing others.

My second aha moment was recognizing that, by today’s standards, Harriet would likely be considered a person living with a disability and chronic pain. That reality makes her courage and accomplishments even more remarkable.

What is your favorite story about Tubman?

I love the story of her rescue of Charles Nalle because it captures so many of her defining qualities—cleverness, persistence, and courage all at once.

Helping children understand this part of our nation’s history equips them to be thoughtful observers and wise interpreters of their world.

Nalle had escaped enslavement via the Underground Railroad but was arrested in Troy, New York, under the Fugitive Slave Law. Tubman donned a disguise, worked her way into the room where Nalle was being held, and put her body in harm’s way to enable his escape. Her bravery eventually led to his freedom through a sequence of events that seems too exciting to be a true story.

I’m also moved by the moment she discovers that her husband, John Tubman, had remarried after she escaped enslavement. When she returned to lead him to the North, she was saddened to find he’d already taken another wife. That heartbreak humanizes her in a powerful way. It reminds us that even someone so brave and accomplished experienced deep personal loss.