Chances are, your child has learned about Harriet Tubman in school. A leading abolitionist and social activist in the 1800s, Tubman has local roots—she was born into slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
The Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis and the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture recently announced the unveiling of the museum’s new name, revised in honor of Tubman. It will now be known as the Banneker-Douglass-Tubman Museum.
“This change is not merely symbolic; it embodies Tubman’s unwavering spirit of leadership, service and her relentless fight for freedom and justice,” says Chanel Compton-Johnson, the executive director of MCAAHC and the museum, in a news release.
The renaming ceremony was streamed live last month on the 160th anniversary of Maryland’s Emancipation Day.
The reception featured keynote speaker Nikki Giovanni, a poet, author and activist. Giovanni’s work has earned her accolades including seven National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Image Awards, the first Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award and the Langston Hughes Medal for Poetry.
The event marked a celebration of “the labor and love of Black women, illuminating their vital impact on the future of the [museum] and the broader African American community in Maryland,” Compton-Johnson says in the release.
