BEAUFORT - Tabernacle Baptist Church announced today the Harriet Tubman Monument is set to be unveiled on Saturday, June 1st, 2024 at 1 pm, as part of a weekend long celebration of events, May 31st to June 2nd, at 901 Craven Street in Beaufort.
“This has been a long time coming," said Kenneth F. Hodges, pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church. "I still remember telling the church on Sunday morning in June 2016, which was around the anniversary of the Combahee River Raid, that we were going to build a monument for Harriet Tubman. Our church is no stranger to preserving history, as our members got together and drafted a resolution thanking Abraham Lincoln for freeing us after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation Jan. 1, 1863; that document is a part of the Abraham Lincoln papers. We also undertook the monument to Robert Smalls, and now we are preserving the history of Harriet Tubman right here in Beaufort.”
The commissioned Ed Dwight sculpture will sit on church’s grounds, where it is believed to be the church where Mrs. Tubman made a speech after the Combahee River Raid where contraband known as enslaved African men were inspired to became members of the colored regiment. The church raised nearly $1,000,000 to complete the project, as they received donations from the faith community, individuals, and businesses. The project took 8 years to complete.
Pastor Hodges continued, “It took five years to raise the funds and three years to complete the sculpture. It was a hard sell because most people never heard the story of Harriet Tubman being in Beaufort. Everywhere we went, we told the story over-and-over again about her presence here and finally historians started to tell the story.”
The monument commemorates the time Mrs. Tubman spent in Beaufort, which is often left out of her story. History states Mrs. Tubman lived in Beaufort for approximately two years arriving in Spring 1862 based on orders from Massachusetts Gov. John Andrews, who thought she could be used as a spy, as she was a member of the New England Freedmen’s Aid Society, an organization whose mission was to provide teachers and other aid for "the industrial, social, intellectual, moral, and religious improvement" of freedmen.
While in Beaufort she aided freed women teaching them how to run businesses such as selling food and doing the laundry of the Union soldiers, all while Mrs. Tubman held jobs as a nurse, scout, and cook. Her role in the Combahee River Raid in June 1863, under Col. James Montgomery, for which she freed 756 enslaved Africans is most notable.
For more information about attending the unveiling event, visit https://www.
