The Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies presents “Wanted: Harriet Tubman,” a dialogue with muralist and labor activist Mike Alewitz and artist Nina Cooke John examining the artistic designs and public controversies about their representations of the 19th-century abolitionist, on March 10 from 4 p.m.-6 p.m. at the David C. Driskell Center on the University of Maryland’s College Park campus.
Art curator and historian Adrienne L. Childs will serve as the moderator of the panel. Ernestine “Tina” Wyatt, the great-great-great-grandniece of Tubman, will bring greetings on behalf of her ancestor’s descendants.
On the day before the event, a monument to Tubman by John will be unveiled in Newark, New Jersey, on the spot where a statute of Christopher Columbus once stood. Regarding Alewitz, in 2000, his “Dreams of Harriet,” a series of murals intended to be placed throughout Baltimore, was decommissioned when people complained that Tubman was represented carrying a gun and he refused to disarm her.
The “Wanted: Harriet Tubman” program got its inspiration from an 1849 poster seeking the slave liberator after she fled slavery. Plus, March 10 is Harriet Tubman Day in Maryland.
Registration for the university program on Tubman is required but is free and open to the public.