KemetLeads

Their words

“There was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have de oder; for no man should take me alive.”

As reported by Sarah H. Bradford · Harriet, the Moses of Her People (1886), p. 29

Context Recalling her 1849 escape from slavery in Maryland, she told her biographer Sarah Bradford of the resolve with which she set out for the North.

Portrait of Harriet Tubman
Harriet TubmanUnited States · 1822–1913
Read their story →

Pick the card background

Share on X WhatsApp All quotes

More words from Harriet Tubman

“I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land.”
Harriet Tubman United States
“But I was free, and they should be free. I would make a home in the North and bring them there, God helping me.”
Harriet Tubman United States
“I grew up like a neglected weed — ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it.”
Harriet Tubman United States
“I have seen hundreds of escaped slaves, but I never saw one who was willing to go back and be a slave.”
Harriet Tubman United States

More words from Politics & Liberation

“It always seems impossible until it's done.”
Nelson Mandela South Africa
“Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa.”
Kwame Nkrumah Ghana
“It's true, you cannot kill ideas. Ideas do not die.”
Thomas Sankara Burkina Faso