Most Americans know Harriet Tubman as the fearless conductor of the Underground Railroad—but few know she led the largest liberation of enslaved people in U.S. military history.
A new exhibition at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, S.C., “Picturing Freedom,” uncovers this little-known chapter. During the Combahee River Raid of 1863, Tubman guided Union troops behind Confederate lines and freed 756 people in a single night—10 times as many people than she helped escape than all her years on the Underground Railroad.
Featuring works by Jacob Lawrence, Aaron Douglas, Elizabeth Catlett, and Faith Ringgold (1930–2024), among others, the show brings fresh attention to one of the most daring and underrecognized moments of the Civil War. Underscoring Tubman’s enduring ability to inspire, there are also pieces by contemporary artists.
“Harriet’s story has been told visually over and over and over again,” Angela Mack, the museum’s director, said in an interview. “Just pulling all these works together around the Combahee River Raid is very, very powerful.”
Aaron Douglas, (1931). Collection of the Bennett College for Women Collection,
Greensboro, N.C.
A Daring Feat
The exhibition, guest curated by Vanessa Thaxton-Ward of Virginia’s Hampton University Museum, is based on the new book , which won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for history. Author Edda L. Fields-Black, a descendant of one of the raid’s participants, conducted years of archival research to identify those freed that night, and tell their stories, as well as Tubman’s. Fields-Black first reached out to the Gibbes Museum while she was working on the book in 2022.
“She was kind enough to send us a very early manuscript of the book, and we knew right away this was a story that we wanted to try and tell through an exhibition,” Mack said. The project became her swan song, as she is retiring this year after 44 years at the museum, where she has been director since 2008.
J. Henry Fair, (2022). Courtesy of the artist.
The result is a multimedia display combining Modern and contemporary art inspired by Tubman with audio from interviews with descendants of those liberated during the raid. There is also a video reenactment of the daring mission and archival photos of enslaved plantation workers toiling in the fields. Setting the scene are gorgeous landscape photographs of the region—with its tidal rice swamps and dangerous wildlife, including alligators and venomous snakes—by local artist J Henry Fair.
“What is remarkable about what Edda and Henry have done is actually experiencing the site, walking through the pluff mud, understanding the perils that these individuals experienced, knowing perfectly well that if they were captured, their lives would be over,” Mack said. “The daring of it is really unbelievable.”
J Henry Fair, (2015). Courtesy of the artist.
“You almost feel immersed in the Combahee River as you’re walking through the gallery spaces,” she added, “and you’re understanding Harriet’s presence there.”
The representations of Tubman include a Catlett linocut of her pointing the way to freedom, an inspiring light green canvas by Douglas of the silhouette of a woman in the center of a crowd breaking chains over her head, and a moving quilt by contemporary artist Stephen Towns of Tubman and two escaped plantation laborers slipping away on a small boat on the river by the light of the moon.
Terry Plater, , 2021. Courtesy of the Cayuga Museum of History an Art in Auburn, N.Y.
The exhibition also includes work by William H. Johnson, who created the cover artwork for Fields-Black’s book. An early 20th-century South Carolina artist, he is the subject of a traveling retrospective from the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., that opened at the Gibbes in 2022 and goes to Ohio’s Dayton Art Institute later this month. He’s represented here by , depicting Tubman hand-in-hand with John Brown and Frederick Douglass, on loan from Hampton.
Preserving a Legacy
“Combahee River Raid” opens at a time when Tubman’s legacy is more important than ever, and in danger of being lost. President Donald Trump’s administration has instructed national institutions to present a sanitized version of U.S. history that glosses over the evils of colonialism and slavery, and a photograph of Tubman and one of her quotes was briefly removed from the National Park Service’s Underground Railroad website earlier this year. Though it has since been restored, the U.S. Navy recently included the on list of vessels honoring Civil Rights leaders that it recommends renaming.
William H. Johnson, (ca. 1945). Collection of Hampton University Museum, Hampton, Virginia. Gift of the Harmon Foundation.
The change is meant to ensure that all military installations “are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.
But Tubman, as the first African American woman to serve in the U.S. military, certainly embodied the spirit of a warrior. She was a spy for the Union Army, scouting ahead of the Combahee River Raid and heading a ring of others working secretly behind Confederate lines.
J Henry Fair, . Courtesy of the artist.
The raid made her the first woman in American history to lead an armed military engagement, leading troops of 150, including the Second South Carolina Volunteers and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, one of the first all-Black regiments in the Union Army. The mission’s three gunboats hit plantations along the Combahee River, destroying Confederate crops and storehouses, liberating as they went.
The enslaved people working the rice plantations in the area endured backbreaking labor. The very next day after Tubman helped free them, 150 of those men joined the Second South Carolina Volunteers, joining the Union cause.
Stephen Towns, (2020).
“These individuals achieved their freedom and then turned right around and joined the Union Army to come back and fight for others to be freed is pretty remarkable,” Mack said. “It’s extremely important for institutions across the country—whether they are art museums, historical societies, or libraries—to tell these important stories about our history.”
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
