The MOT commemorates the 155th Anniversary of Juneteenth. Juneteenth dates back to June 19, 1865 when union soldier, Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with the news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were free. This announcement was more than two and half years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
The Museum of Tolerance was honored to host Freedom's Sisters, an exhibition created by Cincinnati Museum Center, organized for travel by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), and made possible through the generous support of Ford Motor Company Fund. Explore the virtual tribute to the women who forged freedom.
Known as the "Moses of her People,” Harriet Tubman was an African American abolitionist. An escaped slave, she made approximately 13 voyages into Maryland to lead about 70 enslaved friends and family to freedom in Canada without capture through the Underground Railroad, in spite of her owner posting a $40,000 reward for her return. She was the first American woman to plan and lead a military operation – the raid at Combahee Ferry in 1863 that freed 750 slaves – and was given a full military burial. In 1944, a United States Liberty ship named the SS Harriet Tubman was launched.
There have always been women who longed for an America as good as its promise and who fought for it. Women who heard songs of freedom in their hearts.
They lived in the time of your great-great grandmother. And yesterday. And they live today.
Freedom's Sisters tells the stories of 20 African American women whose work for liberty and equality continues to challenge us to push aside the limitations that constrict us.
Let these women inspire you with new ways to hope, to dream, and to be.
Each city that the exhibition visited was able to designate local Freedom's Sisters who continue the work of the women highlighted in the exhibition. The Museum of Tolerance was proud to honor the following Southern California Freedom's Sisters.
Download the Southern California Freedom's Sisters full list
Download the Exhibition Guide (English) |
Guía de la Exposición (en Español)  |
