Local Author Tells Story Of Harriet Tubman In New Novel

Speaker 1: 00:00 It's the story of an icon who shaped America in ways. Many have never heard parts of Harriet Tubman's life. Novelized giving her bravery, its rightful place in history. Her story is told by New York Times bestselling author and native San Diegan, Elizabeth cobb's. The new book is called the Tubman Command. And Elizabeth joins me now. Welcome. Really pleased to be here. Jane. Thank you for having me. So this book gives us a novelized account of Harriet Tubman's life and service to America. How closely does her story in this book parallel with the facts of history? It's very closely parallel because I'm a professional historian, so to me it's, it's, you know, it's always kind of a challenge, like a little puzzle. How much of their real facts can I stuff into something without people thinking, Oh, I'm reading a history book. You know, I want them to not just know Harriet Tubman better. Speaker 1: 00:49 I want them to feel what it was like. You know, this amazing spy in American history, this know crusader for justice. And there she is with her literally feet in the swamps of South Carolina trying to, you know, turn the world around and trying to make sure that the civil war turns out like we think it ought to. And so why, right Harriet Tubman story as a novel rather than a chapter in the history books. I mean, she's such a great hero of American history that people kind of know her name, but what they know they could write on the back of a cocktail Napkin most folks. And so I think it's a real challenge. And to me a real service, I hope to the nation to help people again, sort of feel her story, to have it come alive in the imagination so that everybody understand, you know, why this woman would be the great woman to have on the American currency. Speaker 1: 01:35 That's not why I started the book, but it's certainly become a crusade since. And what aspects of Harriet Tubman's life were you able to explore in this novel that we don't often read about in history books? You know, I think, well first of all there's the just her spy career with the, with the Union army in the civil war and this amazing raid that she led that is, people don't often talk about. And I think, you know, women in history, people of Color in history, DNA, we tend to, they tend not to get into the big scenes. And yet this is like a crazy big scene of the American civil war. And so it's very fun to write about that. And then the other thing I think people don't appreciate about her is just, you know, she was a person, she was a daughter. She had four sisters and four brothers and parents. Speaker 1: 02:18 She helped her rescue from the south. She, um, was a mother, and you mentioned it early that there's not a lot that people know about Harriet Tubman. You know, what's taught, um, about her in many history books is that she freed slaves, uh, through the underground railroad. But we don't hear much about the role that she played during the civil war with union troops. What can you share about her role? She was sent south by the governor of Massachusetts, John Andrews. So a man, very high up, obviously in Massachusetts thigh. She's a person who's going to be very valuable to the union cause and she went at government expense to South Carolina in 1862 and while she was there, she served in a variety of roles, one of which she served as a nurse. But she, I think more consequentially for the role. She was an interpreter. She was a person who was kind of a go between, between slaves who are escaping into the union lines. Speaker 1: 03:11 We didn't trust a white face, but those were people who had, you had this stuff that became the basis for military intelligence. He also, believe it or not, helps to lead to American gunships. I mean naval warships up the rivers of South Carolina and in this spectacular, right. And then she's doing it. And yet, you know, she's a person like us. She has people she's loved, she has people who didn't fulfill her expectations. She made mistakes, she has regrets. And so understanding how somebody can be so human and at the time, same time, such a hero is does I think. Fascinating. What do you think inspired Tubman's bravery and encouraged? Absolutely. It is a kind of a weird thing. How does one person who sees things that everybody else sees but just decides to take it upon themselves to, to right a wrong. And that's something that is a question that faces at every moment in history. Speaker 1: 04:06 It paces us today who, who stands up, who does stuff. And if you one time brave it, if you one time make that Ron, if you get yourself free, then you suddenly see, oh maybe this is feasible, maybe it's possible. And then once you know that something's possible for some people they just, they can't give it up. Is that what you hope people take away from your book? Yeah, I hope so. I mean, I hope that they feel about Harriet Tubman as I do, which is just an outstanding American patriot. And um, you know, she's part of all of us. You know, she worked for all of us to make our country a better place. And she did you say she's an outstanding American patriot and yet we learned so little about her and our history books in school. What do you think that says about our history books? Speaker 1: 04:54 I think we're just very short sighted. You know, sometimes that's the thing of the month and you know, and, and so Harriet Tubman does get worked in where as maybe she didn't get worked in at all and she gets a sentence or two, but we don't really probe deeply. And, and for me that is one reason to write fiction, to try to take these minimal facts and kind of really liked them and put a spotlight on him so that people walk away going, Oh gosh, now, now I really get it. And I understand you launched an initiative to organize historians, to lobby the treasury secretary to put Tubman on the $20 bill. Why was that so important? I think, you know, that whole campaign, which I wasn't a part of initially took place in 2015 was really all about trying to honor the fact that women are half our population and in a democracy. Speaker 1: 05:39 And in fact, in every other world, democracy, no large democracy in the world. Women do figure on their currency. And so I think that, um, what was interesting is that Harriet Tubman in a huge nationwide vote was voted by 600,000 Americans. A lot of them school kids as being, yeah. The woman who most merits it. What was your reaction when you heard the Trump administration was, was putting that on the back burner? Yeah. Now that the, since then the Trump administration has said, um, the secretary of the Treasury has been, Mnuchin has said, you know, we're just, it's not even going to be while he has this guy's in office, we're not considering remotely. In a way, I wasn't surprised, but I am horrified and mortified and ashamed of us as Americans. I'm also proud, I'm really proud of what we've all done as Americans to try to further the cause of freedom. Harriet Tubman is just one of our best examples of that. I've been speaking with Elizabeth cobb's. Her new novel is called the Tubman Command. Elizabeth, thank you so much. Thank you, Elizabeth. COBB's. We'll be speaking about her book tonight at seven 30 at Warwick's in La Jolla.