The history of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad is an important story in Central New York and really throughout the state. A unique project “Harriet Was Here” brought elementary students together with musicians and historians found a unique way to teach those lessons.
Fifth grade students at Morrisville Eaton Elementary are coming up with some descriptive words for Harriet Tubman. Students such as Natalia Jackson just learned some of their local history…that the Underground Railroad for slaves on their way to freedom made a stop nearby.
“We got to go to Peterboro and see the Gerrit Smith Estate and visit the barn and the laundry and we got to learn a little bit more about Harriet Tubman and Gerrit Smith’s relationship.”
Gerrit Smith focused much of his philanthropy on liberating slaves in Peterboro, a little northeast of Cazenovia.
STUDENT CREATE THE SONG OUT OF THEIR OWN LOCAL HISTORY
The students worked with the folk music duo Magpie to learn more about slavery and abolition. Magpie is made up of Greg Artzner and Terry Leonino. They've produced music for museums and other historical programs.
Aeryn Jackson describes sing-along spirituals Magpie performed with the students in class.
“I like that they let us participate and let us do the hand motions: River, Freedom, Walking, it helps us see how they work as a team, and how cool it is to actually be able to play instruments.”
Now it was their turn take that knowledge and actually write lyrics to a song they help create with the Magpie musicians. They were prompted to come up with words that describe Tubman and Smith, which were then going to make up the lyrics for their song.
Morrisville Eaton Teacher Carrie Martin says children learn best when material is presented in a variety of ways. And what more creative than music -- that the students write. She believes it will be emotionally attached in their memory.
“They’re growing up in a region that has a pretty rich history when it comes to community contribution, taking care of others, and Gerrit Smith was an example or role model for his whole community. I want them to know that because I want them to walk away feeling like they’re a part of that and they can continue it and carry it on.”
The song they come up with is part of a larger project called Harriet Was Here…it was dreamed up by Newcomb Central School Teacher Martha Swan who is also Executive Director of a human rights group called John Brown Lives. Swan wanted to connect different schools that all had their own local connection to abolition and the Underground Railroad.
“I think it helps instill this feeling, this awareness, that just my part of the story, just my piece of the pie, my backyard is not enough to understand everything. Somebody across the street, somebody down the road, somebody across the country knows something that will help me understand more fully this history that we share.”
She got Magpie to work with her students, the Morrisville Eaton class and students from Genesee Elementary in Auburn. Greg Artzner and Terry Leonino, the Magpie Musicians, are music historians that have written songs honoring the Smithsonian and the National Wildlife Refuge among others. And they just applied their songwriting process to kids.
“We figure out how to draw out ideas from them and how to organize them. And then it’s a whole process of really exploring creativity within the English language arts. So we show them how to use thesaurus and how to use rhyming dictionary and how to phrase and deal with meter and rhythm,” says Artzner.
The Morrisville Eaton students ended up creating the song titled Kinder Heart about Gerrit Smith hosting Harriet Tubman’s visits to their area.
(Kinder Heart Lyrics Below)
They traveled to Auburn for a rehearsal and recording of the song. There was also a public presentation with the other schools that took part.
The Genesee Elementary students in Auburn created a song about Luke Freeman, focusing on a barber shop in Auburn that was a meeting place for abolitionist activity.
(Morgan Luke Freeman Lyrics Below)
The students from the Adirondack school of Newcomb came up with lyrics about the slaves who moved north trying to get to Canada.
(My Friend Harriet: General Tubman lyrics below)
Each song Magpie’s Greg and Terry crafted was different …just as each learning experience was different for the students in the various schools and areas.
Martha Swan of John Brown Lives recalls one of the greatest parts of “Harriet Was Here” was seeing pieces of the puzzle coming together.
“It’s extraordinary, the feeling that comes froth from the kids and what they learned, what they shared with one another. In our school our 5th and 6th graders Skyped with the Auburn kids and they were swapping what their local connection, their background connection to Harriet Tubman is. We teachers, we learned from the Auburn kids, what they shared with our kids.”
Swan’s idea for the “Harriet was Here” project came while trying to find a way to advance understanding of racial issues.
“If we could get children in northern and southern schools learning about the history and geography of slavery and the struggle for freedom as it was played out in their backyard, and if the kids then had the chance to swap and share what they were learning, across these political demarcations, then perhaps we would ’d have a chance of deepening our understanding of slavery as a history we’re implicated in North and South.”
And Maybe music was the right language for that conversation.
KINDER HEART
To the rolling hills of Peterboro
From Maryland's Chesapeake Bay
We walked many, many long harsh miles
Facin' danger along the way
My heart ached for the freedom seekers
We shivered in the wind and snow
In a pitch dark moonless winter night
It burned our fingers and our toes
Wore out my traveling' shoes
Travelin' shoes, travelin' shoes
Wore out my traveling' shoes
On my way to his heavenly home
I know you’re hungry tired and cold
But we’re too close to turn back
Let’s keep on headin’ toward heaven’s door
Follow me on down this track
Don’t give up now, my friends,
‘Cause we’re not out o’ danger yet
Push through and you’ll see Peterboro
All your life you’ll never regret
Through the blinding snow we saw the glow
Of the Gerrit Smith house light
At the door he stood so tall
With his long beard of white
All around the family gathered
Ann Smith welcomed us inside
When they realized that they could have died
The freedom seekers broke down and cried
A kinder heart I never knew
Gerrit Smith would lend a hand
Unlike many other wealthy people
He gave throughout the land
They told me I could trust him
I’s wonderin’ if he was real
One by one he’d help us all
To end the painful troubles that we feel
Words and music by Terry Leonino, Greg Artzner and Carrie Martin and Julianne Taylor’s 5th grade students at Morrisville-Eaton Central School, Morrisville, NY. June 11, 2015
LUKE FREEMAN SONG
My name it is Luke Freeman
My journey first began
I was born a slave in Auburn
But now I’m a free man
I worked as a barber
And in my barbershop
I helped the freedom seekers
At my station stop
Long and hard we worked for freedom (3x)
To end slavery
I knew Harriet Tubman
Extraordinar’ly brave
She helped freedom seekers
From slavery she did save
She came to New Guinea
Our black community
We worked with William Seward
To set our people free
Come on Harriet, come on Harriet (3x)
There's many more to save
Our brothers and sisters
She led over the land
Then she came to live among us
To lend a helping hand
Our good friend Mister Seward
A farm to her he sold
A home for friends and family
A shelter from the cold
Come on Harriet, come on Harriet (3x)
There's many more to save
The woman we call Moses
And I were best of friends
And yet I thought we’d never see
The day when slavery ends
it took a lot of people
to free those who were bound
to fight the fight for freedom
the whole wide world around
Come on Harriet, come on Harriet (3x)
There's many more to save
Long and hard we worked for freedom (3x)
To end slavery
4th Grade students @ Genesee Elementary School, Auburn, NY November, 2014
MY FRIEND HARRIET: GENERAL TUBMAN SONG
General Tubman shared my freedom dream
General Tubman hitched on her whole team
She agreed and approved my daring plan
She was as brave and as bold as any man.
Chorus:
Freedom, oh, freedom
Freedom, oh, freedom
Freedom, oh, freedom
Oh Freedom, let ‘em go
She knew the forests, the swamps and waterways
Runnin’ hard with her people many nights and days
With a keen sense she’d find the way if anybody could
Secretly moving through the dark and dangerous wood
Chorus:
Freedom, oh, freedom
Freedom, oh, freedom
Freedom, oh, freedom
Oh Freedom, let ‘em go
The intrepid liberator, she was known far and wide
I needed her helping hand, standing by my side
Her skill and her vision to join me in the fight
For freedom like Moses when he led the Israelites
To see the General to Canada I did go
Would she really join me, I just had to know
But she did not come to Chatham where many came to meet
And pledged in common cause slavery to defeat
Tubman and Douglass were my greatest friends
They’ll have my understanding even after my life ends
I’m sitting in my jail cell waiting to be hung
This war hasn’t ended in fact it’s just begun
10/1/2014 Newcomb CS, Grades 3-6, Julie Slayback & Meredith Aitcheson-Phelps
