The Gibbes Museum of Art, a beacon for the arts in the American South since its establishment in 1858, announces the world premiere of Picturing Freedom: Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Raid (May 23 ‒ October 5). The visionary multimedia exhibition is inspired by the award-winning book by Dr. Edda L. Fields-Black (the Pulitzer organization just announced that her book won the 2025 Pulitzer in History). Her book Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War (Oxford University Press) details a previously untold chapter in our country's history. On that fateful moonlit night in June of 1863, Tubman led the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history. Dr. Fields- Black is descended from one of the participants of the freedom raid. The museum exhibition brings to life the heroic raid, when 756 enslaved people liberated themselves in six hours ‒ more than ten times the number of people Tubman rescued during her ten years of work on the Underground Railroad. The raid was carried out by one of the earliest all-Black regiments of the Union army.
The Gibbes Museum has invited Dr. Vanessa Thaxton-Ward as the guest curator for the Picturing Freedom exhibition. She is the Director of Hampton University Museum, and hand-picked artworks from institutions and private collections across the United States. Never before has a grouping of works of this size and scope, honoring Harriet Tubman throughout more than 100 years of American artmaking, been presented this way. She has selected artworks by major artists (including Jacob Lawrence, Faith Ringgold and William H. Johnson), and by emerging contemporary artists (including Stephen Towns, Terry Plater, and Kevin Pullen).The paintings, sculptures and mixed media works are featured alongside photographs of the region by J Henry Fair, video and audio installations, historic images, and material objects.
For more information, go to
https://www.gibbesmuseum.org/exhibitions/p... See the ABC News Live video segment at:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/video/pulitzer-p... Read the recent piece in Smithsonian Magazine at:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/... Photo Credit: Harriet Tubman exhibition at Gibbes Museum in Charleston, Gibbes Museum
Posted By: Reginald Culpepper
Monday, July 21st 2025 at 7:57PM
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