Unwavering Courage in the Pursuit of Freedom (Wilmington, Delaware)

Unwavering Courage in the Pursuit of Freedom (Wilmington, Delaware)

Subject (Topic)
Antislavery movements--United States
Delaware--Wilmington
Freedom
Fugitive slaves
Public art
Public sculpture
Underground Railroad

Subject (Name)
Tubman, Harriet, 1822-1913
Garrett, Thomas, 1789-1871

Subject (Object Type)
Commemorative sculpture

A multi-figure sculpture of Harriet Tubman and Thomas Garrett leads two fugitive enslaved persons, a semi-nude man and a fully clothed woman, along the Underground Railroad in Wilmington, Delaware. Tubman carries a baby in her arms and wears a head wrap, shawl, haversack, and carries a pistol at her waist. Garrett wears a suit, cape and top hat, and holds a lantern. The sculpture includes three pairs of boots, a crate, and a barrel. Signed by the artist: M. Chiodo, 2012.

Chiodo, Mario, 1961-

Photographs by Renée Ater

October 3, 2012

Oasis Design Group (Kimley-Horn); The City of Wilmington’s Percent for Art Fund; Riverfront Development Corporation of Delaware; and Riverfront Wilmington Sculpture Selection Committee

The City of Wilmington Department of Parks and Recreation, 500 Wilmington Avenue, Wilmington, Delaware, 19801, United States

JPEG

English

Visual Arts-Sculpture

Tubman-Garrett Riverfront Park, 815 Justison Street, Wilmington, Delaware, 19801, United States

Bronze plaque:
Unwavering Courage in the Pursuit of Freedom, Dedicated October 3, 2012, Honorable James M. Baker, Mayor, Artist: Mario Chiodo.

Inscripton on Tubman biographical bronze plaque:
Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Harriet Ross; 1820 – March 10, 1913). ‘I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.’ Born on Maryland’s eastern shore, Harriet Tubman’s family of eleven suffered the indignities of violence and division common to the institution of slavery. Harriet escaped from slavery following the death of her owner in 1849. Over the course of 10 years, with the help of Thomas Garrett and other abolitionists, she led hundreds of slaves along the Underground Railroad through Wilmington to freedom in New York, New England, and Canada, earning the title of the ‘Moses of her people’. During the Civil War, she was a cook and a nurse and became a spy and armed scout for the federal forces, helping to liberate more than 700 slaves in South Carolina. Tubman died in 1913 at her home in Auburn, NY.

Inscripton on Garrett biographical bronze plaque:
Thomas Garrett (b. August 21, 1789 – d. January 24, 1871). ‘No labor during a long life has give me so much real happiness as what I have done for the slave.’ Thomas Garrett has been called Delaware’s greatest humanitarian and is credited with helping more than 2,700 slaves escape to freedom in a forty-year long career as a station master of the Underground Railroad. His abolitionist activities, along with the Quaker congregation from the Friends Meeting House in Wilmington, helped to make Wilmington an important gateway on the freedom trail. Garrett helped Harriet Tubman on her many journeys, giving her food, clothing, shelter, and money. He was convicted of violating the federal Fugitive Slave Law in 1848 and heavily fined and forced into bankruptcy. Garrett devoted his life to the abolitionist cause, openly defying slave hunters, as well as the slave system.

Monument and Myth: Commemorating Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad

100 in. (274.32 cm)

Bronze; Granite

Chiodo, Mario. “Unwavering Courage in the Pursuit of Freedom.” Freedom March of Art. Accessed March 18, 2018. www.freedommarchofart.com/tubman.html.

Ater, Renée. "Monument and Heritage Tourism: Memorializing Harriet Tubman and Thomas Garrett on the Underground Railroad in Delaware." In Ending Slavery: The Antislavery Struggle in Perspective, eds. Lawrence Ajé and Claudine Raynaud, 265-286. Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée, 2022.

Renée Ater

Sculpture

100 in. (274.32 cm)