Saturday, February 1, 2014

Celebrating Harriet Tubman #GoogleDoodles

Ahh, the Google Doodles.

The fun, quirky, moving (sometimes literally) illustrated graphic or video that plays on the Google Search homepage and showcases a daily date/person/theme/event in history.

Where would we be without the daily reminder of Daylight Savings Time (dang useful!) or the pure delight that came from the Claire Du Lune video graphic honoring Claude de Bussey? And today, one of my personal favorite radicals and role model: Harriet Tubman- with her candle-lantern raised aloft against the backdrop of a star-strewn Northern sky.

Feministe.us suggested Harriet Tubman as a Doodle honoree in 2010 in a post titled "Google Says the World was Made, Made Pretty by Men"...but who knows if the Google Doodler reads Shelby Knox?
Google, I’ve got some suggestions for you. What about Ada Lovelace, the woman who was the world’s first computer programer and, conveniently, has a whole day dedicated to her celebration? If the guy who created the first nuclear facility in China gets a doodle, Marie Curie certainly deserves one. If you honored the birth of realism, you should also honor the (flawed, yes) godmother of feminism, Mary Wollstonecraft. What about some of the women behind the great social movements in the United States, like Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Dorothy Height?

Has Google turned a new leaf and added more women to the roster since 2010? I'm not sure. Honestly, that sounds like a really boring thing to google right now on this bright Saturday morning.

I do think it is important that anyone who learns from Google Doodles about the courageous and beautiful work of historical luminaries receive an education on the remarkable women who made the world change. Having grown up in the backyard of the suffrage movement in a strong abolitionist city and raised in the peace movement, Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroan, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton with her Suffrage Bible, Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth...they were the giants of the tales my classmates and I were told in school about the formation of all that was good, and just, and righteous about the United States.

They were the revolution from within. This song, one I learned when I sang with the Community Choir as a teenager, stuck with me. I hope you like it.




“Harriet Tubman” by Walter Robinson (1977)

Last night I dreamed I was in slavery
'Bout 1850 was the time
Sorrow was the only sign
Nothing about to ease my mind
Out of the night appeared a lady
Leading a distant pilgrim band.
"First Mate," she cried, pointing her hand,
"Make room aboard for this young man!"

 "Come on up; I got a lifeline!
 Come on up to this train of mine!
 Come on up; I got a lifeline!
 Come on up to this train of mine!"
 She said her name was Harriet Tubman
 And she drove for the Underground Railroad.

Hundreds of miles we traveled onward;
Gathering slaves from town to town;
Seeking every lost and found;
Setting those free who once were bound.
Somehow my heart was growing weaker.
I fell by the wayside, sinking sand.
Firmly did this lady stand,
Lifted me up and took my hand.

 "Come on up; I got a lifeline!
 Come on up to this train of mine!
 Come on up; I got a lifeline!
 Come on up to this train of mine!"
 She said her name was Harriet Tubman
 And she drove for the Underground Railroad.

 "Come on up! I got a lifeline!
 Come on up to this train of mine!
 Come on up! I got a lifeline!
 Come on up to this train of mine!"
 She said her name was Harriet Tubman,
 And she drove for the Underground Railroad. 

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