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Singing: Precious Lord, take my hand, and lead me on, and let me stand.
Honestly a long time overdue, but you know what, I'm glad, you know, they say, you know, great things take some time.
My name is Patricia Ross Hawkins, and I am a great great great niece of Harriet Ross Tubman. (singing)
We're here today celebrating the ribbon-cutting and the ground-breaking
for the National Park, the proposed national park that we know is on the way, and state
visitor's center and the underground byways. And I am so excited .There's lots of people
out here today. (Singing: Take my hand, precious Lord)
Now you know I was born a slave in this country, right there in Dorchester county. You know that. They called me a conductor
on the Underground Railroad, but I tell you the Underground Railroad can't free all the slaves.
Now it's time for us to dedicate this ground - I call it hallowed ground. Harriett
walked here. One little lady walked this hallowed ground. (Inaudible) In Dorchester county, I believe that
the Harriett Tubman story needs to be told and shared with the public.
At 17 acres, this state park may be one of the smallest in our system, however, not unlike Harriett Ross
Tubman herself, it will be the largest for many in their hearts and minds.
If Harriett suddenly popped up in this ground right now, it would look familiar. It would seem the
same in many ways. It's still an agricultural forest and farmland and wetlands and...
Dr. King's oratory, one of his most famous quotes "The arc of the moral universe is long."
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." To think that this
little woman with such great courage could somehow take that arc of the moral universe
and somehow with the weight and the strength of Hercules bend that arc in a way that helped
up lead the way to a more perfect nation and a more perfect humanity than we had known.
I stand here in front of you as the Secretary of the Interior serving under Barack Obama's
cabinet. I will say to you on his behalf that we are bending that arc of the moral universe
in the right way by the work that you are doing here today.
Frederick Douglass once wrote to Harriett Tubman, "Much that you have done would seem improbable to those who do
not know you as I know you." What a tremendous individual, tremendous feats of courage and
valor and accomplishment. While none of us can ever know her in the same way that Frederick
Douglass and her contemporaries know her, I think we all have a sense that her spirit
is with us today. Let us vow today together that we will tell her story again and again
and again to generations and generations of little boys and girls who carry her courage
in their own hearts. Thank you very much.
This is the best way, in my view, how a story like this can be told.
I thought it was a great day. I mean it was a tremendous spirit
of Harriett Tubman here in this place, on this beautiful sunny day on the Eastern Shore,
and this is going to be a tremendous trail. It's going to teach a lot of kids for generations
to come about this courageous woman.