The Dreams of Harriet Tubman is a mural looking for a wall in
Baltimore. Artist Mike Alewitz, who has created murals and banners for the
Labor Party, UE and the FAT, was commissioned to do a series of murals in
Maryland honoring Harriet Tubman. Born a slave in Maryland, Tubman
(1820?-1913) escaped to freedom — but returned to the slave states
repeatedly to help free others.
The original host of the central mural — the image shown here —
objected to Tubman’s rifle and withdrew its offer of a wall. According to
Alewitz, the mural depicts Tubman as she was known: "Moses. Harriet is
shown parting the seas of reaction, as she did in her life. Her staff is the
rifle that she carried. The children of Israel are the slave armies who
resisted their bondage and joined the Union ranks. Drowning in the tide is
Pharaoh’s tribe: the slavers and other forces of reaction."
The lack of a major wall in Baltimore has not been the only setback. A
mural in the Harriet Tubman series on the wall of a school in Harford County
was defaced last summer by racist graffiti. Undeterred, Alewitz is proceeding
with murals in other Maryland sites that show scenes from the freedom fighter’s
life.
UE News - 02/01
