Most museums have had to close for the foreseeable future due to the coronavirus pandemic. But a new museum dedicated to the legacy of Harriet Tubman is opening its doors virtually in honor of the Juneteenth holiday.
The Harriet Tubman Museum in Cape May, New Jersey, was slated to open for in-person visits on Juneteenth this year, as Blavity previously reported. The pandemic, however, forced organizers to shift plans and hold the opening ceremony through Facebook, according to The Daily Journal.
A look inside the future home of the Harriet Tubman Museum in Cape Mayhttps://t.co/J0k2LfRykQ pic.twitter.com/gAy1fMQclv
— CapeMay.com (@LoveCapeMay) November 19, 2019
"The Harriet Tubman Museum has been organized to recognize Harriet Tubman's courage, compassion and conviction as well as the history of abolitionist activism in Cape May and its surrounding region. Harriet Tubman lived in Cape May in the early 1850s, working to fund her expeditions to conduct fugitive slaves to freedom, and leaving Cape May to rescue enslaved people in southern states," event organizers said in an announcement.
Although Cape May is a small New Jersey town about an hour outside of Philadelphia, it played an integral role in the abolitionist movement and served as a home to Tubman and many others as they worked to free slaves.
The town sits right across the bay from Delaware and for many slaves served as a destination to freedom.
The museum organizers told The Daily Journal that they hope it can provide visitors with an in-depth understanding of the roots of the abolitionist movement in Cape May and the many actions people took to free enslaved people.
Tubman worked out of a hotel near the town's historic Howell House, which sat next to the Macedonia Baptist Church and is now where the museum is located.
There are a number of buildings in the town that are part of its rich history as a place where Black people lived and organized funding for the Underground Railroad.
"We understood the impact but we also wanted it to connect with our church and also to the history of Cape May City and definitely to its African American residents that at one time, the population was over 30 percent and probably has diminished to probably in the area of under 5 percent today," church trustee Lynda Townes told The Daily Journal, adding that the museum was a way for people now to "look at one small place and a person who made such a difference in lives, and know that there are many who are still making the same impact that Harriet Tubman did."
The Harriet Tubman Museum, located at 632 Lafayette Street in Cape May, will have a virtual opening live-streamed on their Facebook page from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. accompanied with music and a discussion about Black preservation efforts.
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