Alice Bernstein - Journalist & Aesthetic Realism Associate

Can learning about history encourage what's best in people right now? Yes! was the resounding answer of parents and children at a recent presentation at the Queens Historical Society (QHS) in Flushing, NY, given by Aesthetic Realism consultant Devorah Tarrow, and elementary school educator Barbara McClung. This event celebrated the courage of Harriet Tubman (c. 1820-1913), a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, who brought many enslaved people to freedom.

Jim Driscoll, QHS president, introduced the speakers to the diverse audience who filled the media room of the landmark Kingsland Homestead (1785), saying: “They'll present what they've learned from Aesthetic Realism, the education founded by the American philosopher and poet Eli Siegel, about a most important matter: "What history can tell us about ourselves.”

Thus began an adventure for the audience. Through discussion, pictures, maps, and a play, Ms. Tarrow and Ms. McClung not only had us learn about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, they showed what her life can teach us about the largest fight in every person right now, which Aesthetic Realism explains—between the desire to respect the world and people, and the hope to have contempt for them.

Devorah Tarrow (left) and Barbara McClung. Photo credit: David M. Bernstein

Harriet Tubman Stands for the Best in Every Person

Displaying a map of what were called slave states and free states, the speakers told how Harriet Tubman was born a slave in 1820 on a plantation in Maryland. As a child, she was forced to stay awake at night to watch the master's child and make sure the baby didn't cry.

A young girl in the audience raised her hand, saying “I learned in school that when the baby cried, she got beaten.”

“That is terrible and true,” said Ms. McClung. “And at age 13, when Harriet tried to help a man who was trying to escape, an iron weight was thrown at her. It hit her head, and she almost died. As a result of this injury, for the rest of her life she had spells of falling asleep and then waking up. Still, she was able to do great work.”

In her 20s, we learned, Harriet Tubman was able to escape with the help of abolitionists and Quakers, who felt passionately that slavery was wrong, immoral. One form their respect for people took was a network of secret places, safe houses, and routes to freedom in the North. People risked their own lives to help enslaved persons—men, women, and children—escape. This was called “The Underground Railroad.”

The speakers showed drawings of colorful quilts which abolitionists hung outside their homes, with patterns which were actually warnings or directions for persons fleeing slavery. For example, a zigzag pattern meant “go in a zigzag route.” There were also songs that gave directions: “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” about the Big Dipper pointing to the North Star!

How Important Is the Desire to Know!

Harriet Tubman, the speakers said, had a love for knowledge. Although she couldn't read (it was illegal to teach a slave to read or write) she learned, for instance, how to follow the moss growing on the north side of trees, where to cross rivers and swamps, how to disguise or hide herself and other enslaved persons.

Hiding by day and traveling at night, Harriet finally reached Pennsylvania, a Free State. She later said: "When I had found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven."

But she wasn't just satisfied with her own freedom. As a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad she went back South 19 times, risking her life to bring hundreds of people to freedom. And during the Civil War (1861-1865), she acted as a scout and a nurse for northern troops. Later on, she made her home in Auburn, New York, and died in 1913 at the age of 93.

Respect and Contempt, Then & Now

The speakers explained that the education Aesthetic Realism shows there are two desires in every person, and history can help us understand these in ourselves, making the past useful to us right now!

“Do you think Harriet Tubman's respect for people and her desire to know made her both strong and kind?” the speakers asked. “Yes, and she was very courageous,” answered a girl. Said Ms. Tarrow, Harriet Tubman is loved and remembered because she stands for what's best in all of us—our desire to respect the world and people. Aesthetic Realism taught us that the deepest desire of every person is to like the world, and part of this is the desire to be just to people. A man in the audience raised his hand and said he was very much affected by this principle, and gave as an example, “I worry about the environment and global pollution; it affects us all.”

“And then we have another desire,” said Ms. McClung, “which is to have contempt, to get an ‘addition to self through the lessening of something else.' We've seen it's the worst thing in us and always weakens us. It's the cause of all injustice, including economic injustice.” She spoke about how ordinary contempt is. She gave an example: as a girl, when she wanted her older brother to take her to the movies and he said he couldn't—he had the nerve to have something else to do!—she was furious and spiteful. She said she felt, He's my brother, therefore I own him and he should do what I want him to do!

Devorah Tarrow explained, “Aesthetic Realism encourages people to ask: How is contempt in me?, because when we see what contempt is and criticize it in ourselves, we respect ourselves, and we can change.”

“What do you think contempt has to do with slavery?” she asked. She said a person can think about someone whose skin color or background is different from ours: “You're less of a human being than I am; I'm superior to you, and I can have power over you.” For ex-ample, she said that at age 12 she stopped talking to her best friend in order to be with other boys and girls who were considered “cool.” “To this day I'm ashamed of doing that. We can ask: Have I ever felt big because I could put someone else down, make fun of them?”

A man in the audience agreed, saying, “It can be in a relation with a young lady, or with an animal—you want to rule over them. You want them to love you and do anything for you. I've seen the pain animals go through because of this, including an owner who wanted his pit bull to hurt another dog. That was contempt!”

Yes, Ms. Tarrow said: “A woman can feel about a man, He's going to do what I want him to do no matter what. Wives can treat their husbands as property who should obey them.” Women in the audience were nodding and smiling in recognition! When Ms. McClung said, “Children can feel they own their mothers,” youngsters and adults also nodded!

Delaware, New Jersey —Respect & Freedom!

Part of this event was the audience's enacting a dramatic sketch from Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman by Sarah Bradford (1869). The reason, Ms. McClung said, was so that we can think about the feelings of other people many years ago. This is the purpose of taking the part of a person in a play. Aesthetic Realism explains it is the art solution, which is also the ethical solution. In order to be just, it is very important to get within the feelings of another person: of 1860 and right now.

The speakers first read the story. A group of fugitive men, women, and children, led by Harriet Tubman, had finally reached Delaware, a slave state bordering the free state of New Jersey. Warned by friends that police were guarding the bridge to New Jersey, they were hidden in nearby homes. A Quaker, Thomas Garrett, devised a plan to elude the police. He hired two wagons to come from New Jersey, driven by bricklayers who crossed the bridge into Delaware, singing and shouting. But when they re-crossed the bridge at day's end, the fugitive slaves were lying hidden in the bottom of the wagons with the bricklayers on the seats, still singing and shouting!

The speakers read the play again, and as that wagon of singing workers and hidden slaves passed the guards—with men, women, and young persons of the audience enacting all the roles—the room rang out with cheers and applause as they finally reached the other side, and freedom!

Within the Feelings of Other People

A man who played a fugitive slave said “I thought I would be only afraid, but I also felt delighted!” The man who played Thomas Garrett said, “My legs were shaking, but I outsmarted the slaveholders, and that felt good!”

The actor of Harriet Tubman said, “I was proud of the feeling of solidarity, that I could reach out to people who wanted to risk their own lives. I have a very good feeling.”

A man who played a guard said: “I tried not to feel anything. I did my job and put my feelings aside. But I was really glad that I didn't see any slaves trying to escape.” A woman who enacted a bricklayer said, “You feel proud that you did something good and had courage yourself.”

Devorah Tarrow quoted the crucial ethical question asked by Eli Siegel: “What does a person deserve by being a person?” She said that this was an important presentation of what Aesthetic Realism teaches: that we can make the choice for respect every day. We can ask: What does that person, whose skin is a different color from mine, deserve from me? Is he or she like me? Can knowing him or her be useful to me? What does another girl, who dresses differently from me, deserve from me? Do I want to value her and understand her? What will make me proud?

A woman who came with her son represented the sentiments of many when she said, “This was great! Thank you.”

The Hon. Eddie Adams, a New York State Democratic Committeeman who was present, said: “You bring history into the here and now, and it's so important that this knowledge get out. It makes you think about things you've done that are good and you can feel proud of, and things that are bad and you have to check yourself about. It was wonderful and has what every child and adult should know!”

To learn more about this presentation, you may contact the not-for-profit Aesthetic Realism Foundation at (212) 777-4490, and visit the website www.AestheticRealism.org

Alice Bernstein is a journalist, a contributing writer to African American National Biography, Oxford University Press, and author of The People of Clarendon County-A Play by Ossie Davis, with Photographs and Historic Documents, and Essays on the Education That Can End Racism, Third World Press, forthcoming, Fall 2007.