Episode 65: Harriet with Edda Fields-Black

Historians At The Movies

This week Edda Fields-Black joins in to talk about her book on Harriet Tubman and the film Harriet. We talk about the importance of accurate terminology in black history, the role of religion in enslaved people's lives, the challenges of escaping from South Carolina, and the emotional impact of historical research. We also get into the need for more biopics on historical figures and recommend books and scholars for further reading. Edda's new book is gonna CHANGE THINGS, y'all. I hope you like the pod.
About our guest:
Edda Fields-Black is a specialist in the trans-national history of West African rice farmers, peasant farmers in pre-colonial Upper Guinea Coast and enslaved laborers on rice plantations in the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry during the antebellum period.

Fields-Black’s new book, COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War (Oxford University Press, trade list, February 2024) offers the fullest account to date of Tubman’s Civil War service. This narrative history tells the untold story of the Combahee River Raid from the perspective of Tubman and the enslaved people she helped to free based on new sources not previously used by historians, as well as new interpretations of sources familiar to Tubman’s biographers. It is the story of Harriet Tubman’s Civil War service during which she worked as a cook and nurse in Beaufort, SC, and gathered intelligence among freed people and enslaved Blacks. It is the story of enslaved people who labored against their wills on seven rice plantations, ran for their lives, boarded the US gunboats, and sailed to freedom.