Harriet Tubman’s values remain vital, as asylum seekers arrive in Canada
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The values Harriet Tubman fought for more than 150 years ago are just as vital today, as thousands of asylum seekers arrive at Canada’s borders.
“Her values are something we need to hold onto, as current, as pertinent, and requiring all of us to take responsibility for each other’s freedoms, for each other’s education and for everything else that Harriet Tubman and her colleagues worked hard for,” said Dr. Tapo Chimbganda, one of several participants at a Harriet Tubman Day event at St. Catharines city hall, Friday.
While focusing on the history of St. Catharines and Niagara as destination for Black people seeking freedom, the plight of asylum seekers arriving in Canada, including thousands staying in Niagara Falls hotels, were also on the minds of speakers during the annual event, held on the 110th anniversary of the abolitionist’s death.
Chimbganda, the founder of Future Black Female — a non-profit organization that assists Black girls and women with their education and career paths — said thousands of people from all over the world are now staying in Niagara Falls hotel rooms, after arriving at Canada’s borders.
However, she said public sentiments regarding refugees often do not “reflect that value of freedom.”
“We need to be aware as we celebrate Harriet Tubman, what message we’re now bringing across as a community. Are we still concerned about people’s freedoms? Or have we become so self focused that we’ve forgotten that this was one place where people in the U.S. would dream of coming to, to live their lives? This was a dream destination,” Chimbganda said. “When people come to us now, what are we showing them? What are we offering them? I think it’s really important that we remember the work of Harriet Tubman through our actions and our attitudes moving forward.”
Chimbganda said Tubman’s values remain important and “they’re something that should unite us as a city and as a community, across whatever divide we might experience or we might imagine, we all need that freedom.”
“We all need that right to be called free,” she said. “Let us unite around that value of freedom, whether it comes through what we do for those amongst us who are marginalized, people with disabilities, people who are unhoused or underhoused, people of different races or newcomers in our communities.”
Salem Chapel BME Church historian Rochelle Bush, MPP Jennie Stevens and Mayor Mat Siscoe also participated in the event, as well as members of Future Black Female, and students and teachers from Harriet Tubman School who read a poem students wrote about the Underground Railroad conductor.
St. Catharines anti-racism advisory committee chair Saleh Waziruddin reflected on the city’s place as a refuge for freedom seekers, as well as people from “the other side,” referring to Confederates who took refuge in Canada following the Civil War.
Now, as people continue arriving at Canada’s borders seeking refuge, Waziruddin said they are being challenged by some people “who immigrated here in earlier times, onto Indigenous land.”
He said the Migrant Rights Network is organizing a rally at 2 p.m., Sunday, March 19, in front of Niagara Falls city hall, in support of the recently arrived asylum seekers.
It’s one of six rallies the organization is holding to mark the International Day for Elimination of Racism, and “to unite against racism in all its forms,” he added.
Meanwhile, Waziruddin also called for tougher penalties against perpetrators of hate crimes.
“This very legacy and symbol has been under attack in North America,” he said, referring to recent vandalism at Harriet Tubman School and at Salem Chapel, as well as a vandalized statue of Tubman in Annapolis, Maryland, in December.
“The students faculty and staff at Harriet Tubman School have been resilient,” Waziruddin said. “But to give them true justice, we should show we take hate crimes and anti-Black racism seriously in St. Catharines by using the laws we already have against hate crimes.”
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