How Harriet Tubman and Philadelphia abolitionists coordinated dangerous journeys to freedom

A roughly 14-foot-tall bronze statue of the United States’ most famous abolitionist, Harriet Tubman, will become a permanent fixture outside Philadelphia’s City Hall later this year. It will be the first statue of a Black female historical figure in the city’s public art collection. Harriet Tubman as photographed by Harvey B. Lindsley, circa 1871-1876. Library of Congress As scholars of African American studies, Africology and geography at Temple University in Philadelphia, we believe the statue’s completion is an opportune time to think about Philadelphia’s central role in African American history, including as a key destination point for those who escaped slavery along the Underground Railroad. Philadelphia’s free Black community After Pennsylvania passed the Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery on March 1, 1780, Philadelphia’s Black population grew rapidly. By 1790 there were about 2,000 free Black residents in the city. Among them were doctors, teachers, merchants, clergymen, sailors and skilled artisans. In 1787, the same year the nation’s founders met in Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall, to ratify the U.S. Constitution, Black clergymen Absalom Jones and Richard Allen established the Free African Society in Philadelphia. The FAS was America’s first Black mutual aid association, and