Reenactor portrays Harriet Tubman for seniors

Willie Pinkney is known to Annapolis Senior Activity Center members as the center’s nutrition site manager. On Feb. 24, she appeared at the center in a different guise.

Dressed in a burlap dress with a scarf wrapped around her head, she played the part of Harriet Tubman as part of the center’s Black History Month events.

Inbal Neun, center director, welcomed Tubman to the center and told the seniors how Tubman was brain damaged as a child when she was hit by a metal weight. “The master was throwing the metal weight at a little boy when Harriet Tubman jumped in the way,” Neun explained. She had scars and suffered the effects of this incident all her life.

Tubman told the seniors that she was from Maryland and was married twice. She told about her escape using the Underground Railroad and how she also helped family and friends to escape. She sang several spiritual songs, including “Free at Last.”

About 25 seniors attended the presentation. They found it very informative and oohed and aahed at the songs and some of the informative tidbits that they picked up about this African-American woman who was an abolitionist, humanitarian and Union spy during the American Civil War.

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