Harriet

During Black History Month, High Point University sponsors many events around campus to bring awareness to the social injustice that happened. On Tuesday I went and watched the movie Harriet. The movie follows Harriet Tubman’s incredible life story and how she not only escaped the confederate south for freedom, but went back and rescued many other slaves. The best way for history to not repeat itself is to learn about it, so I picked a movie that I did not know much about so I could gain knowledge to better understand the hardships of being an African American women slave during this time. It was a moving movie because it puts your life into perspective and how good we all have it. 

The moment that stuck with me are that even though there were times that she did not believe she was going to make it she still prevailed there was a quote in the movie that said “I’d rather die than be a slave” she knew she was outnumbered and the odds were against her. It was a very moving part of the movie when Harriet goes back to rescue her father but chooses to not leave her deceased sister’s daughter behind. She had to orchestrate a plan to get her out of the manor and bring her to safety because she believed that she was not truly free unless her family was free with her. They always say blood is thicker than water and in this movie you really do witness that because not many people in the world then or now would risk their lives in the way that Harriet did to free her family. 

This film connects to the topic of a single story that she was an African American, a woman, and a slave. In this time period being a slave you had one job to do in life, and that was to do whatever your white male owner told you to do. She was a minority in aspect of her life and people were counting her out when she told them her plan of going back to help get her family and others to freedom. She had big dreams, but to the outsiders that’s all they thought she was capable of doing. Single stories are not just a thing of now, this movie proves that women all throughout time have had to struggle with proving their worth in the “man’s” world. It is a tough subject for some to understand and realize that it is an injustice. 

Like I mentioned before, this movie was extremely moving. Even now we complain about the small things in life, but if we take time to look back and reflect what people had to go through during this terrible period in American history. We are so quick to jump to conclusions about someone even without knowing who they truly are and the amazing things they have accomplished. The moment I will most remember from this movie is seeing the look of relief that she and the others had when they knew that they had reached safety. It puts everyone’s life into perspective.