As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, the nation is asking difficult questions about its founding ideals. Whose stories have been told? Whose sacrifices have been celebrated? And whose contributions remain incomplete in the American narrative?
Hampton, Va. (July 8, 2026) – At the Hampton University Museum, those questions find powerful answers in Picturing Freedom: Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Raid, an exhibition that challenges visitors to reconsider one of the nation’s most iconic figures, Harriet Tubman, while introducing them to hundreds of people whose lives forever changed because of her courage.
The exhibition arrives at a defining moment. Across the country, America 250 invites communities to reflect on the nation’s past and imagine its future. In the Commonwealth, the Virginia 250 initiative explores the theme of “Navigating Freedom,” recognizing that the pursuit of liberty has never followed a straight path.
Few stories embody that journey more completely than Harriet Tubman’s leadership during the Combahee River Raid and the generations of families who emerged from that act of liberation.
Curated by Dr. Vanessa Thaxton-Ward, director of the Hampton University Museum, and inspired by Dr. Edda L. Fields-Black’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book ‘COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War,’ the exhibition is both a work of scholarship and an act of remembrance. Through paintings, sculpture, basket weaving, quilts, photography, archival materials and immersive video installations, visitors experience not only one of the Civil War’s most remarkable military operations but also the humanity behind one of America’s greatest heroes.
The Woman Called ‘Moses’
History has often remembered Harriet Tubman as a symbol.
The fearless conductor. The abolitionist. The freedom fighter. The legend.
Yet symbols can become distant. Over time, they lose the complexity that makes them human.
This exhibition restores that complexity.
Visitors encounter Tubman as a military strategist navigating unfamiliar waters under the constant threat of Confederate torpedoes, guns, and torches. They see a woman making impossible decisions under extraordinary circumstances. They understand that courage is not the absence of fear but the willingness to act despite it.
Aside from her military expeditions, this exhibition also focuses on Harriet the individual, the matriarch, the nurse, the wife, the daughter, and the many titles she wore beyond being a Union spy.
“People think of Harriet Tubman almost as a myth, a legendary figure,” said Thaxton-Ward.
“But I want people to see that she was a daughter. She was a sister. She was a mother to her stepdaughter. The first people she tried to free were her own family members. Through this exhibition, we see the whole woman.”
For generations, Tubman’s role in the Combahee River Raid remained largely absent from mainstream accounts of the Civil War, despite her leadership in an operation that resulted in the liberation of more than 750 enslaved men, women and children. She would spend much of her life fighting for recognition of her military service.
“I worked in Beaufort County for three and a half years, so I knew Harriet Tubman had been there, but I really didn’t know why,” said Thaxton-Ward.
“When I was asked to curate this exhibition and was given Dr. Edda Fields-Black’s book, it became a whole new history lesson. I finally understood why she was in Beaufort and Charleston. It allowed me to connect all the dots and really see how powerful a woman she was.”
Paying Overdue Respects to History
The exhibition asks visitors to confront that history while considering another question.
What happens when we remember the hero but forget the people whose lives she transformed?
That is where Picturing Freedom breaks new ground.
Rather than ending the story on the banks of the Combahee River, the exhibition follows the lives that began again that night.
Drawing upon Dr. Fields-Black’s groundbreaking research, and the photography and documentation of New York based photographer, J Henry Fair visitors meet descendants of those liberated during the raid. Photographs, oral histories and recorded interviews reveal how one night in June 1863 echoes across generations. The exhibition transforms historical numbers into living families whose stories continue today.
The exhibition reminds visitors that emancipation was not the end of a story. It was the beginning of thousands of new ones.
“The goal was never to create a history book on the walls. We wanted to create an exhibition that would bring history to life,” Thaxton-Ward reflected.
When asked about the significance of South Carolina’s Low Country and the semblance of this region being a hotbed of rebellion, from Denmark Vesey’s planned raid in 1822 at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, an alleged plot to cause a major slave revolt, to the Combahee River Raid, Thaxton-Ward had this to say.
“Due to the heat and the conditions on the Sea Islands, many slave owners could not stand to be on the plantations for long. I think this was why many of the enslaved men and women were able to maintain much of their African culture and felt emboldened to take their freedom into their own hands as they had a degree of independence that other enslaved people did not have in the south.”
This exhibition showcases the will and determination of these freedom seekers and the legacy their descendants are looking to preserve.
Finding a Home for The Stories of Hundreds of Freedmen
The Hampton University Museum, the oldest African American museum in the United States, has long understood that history lives not only in documents but also in creativity, craftsmanship and cultural memory. Each piece of art in this exhibition reflects that philosophy.
Paintings imagine moments no photographer captured.
Sculptures give physical form to resilience.
Quilts preserve family histories stitched together over generations.
Sea Island basket weaving connects visitors to traditions that survived enslavement and continue to flourish today.
“My background in African American material culture told me immediately that we had to include sweetgrass baskets, bulrush baskets, the mortar and pestle and objects that help tell the story of the rice culture. Every object helps visitors understand the place where this history happened,” explained Thaxton-Ward.
Video installations introduce audiences to Gullah Geechee voices, including cultural historian and Hampton University graduate Ron Daise ‘78, whose work has helped preserve the language, traditions and history of the Sea Islands. Their stories reveal how culture itself became an instrument of survival, carrying memory across centuries.
The exhibition also showcases the work of Hampton University alumnus Kevin Pullen ‘77, whose artistic practice demonstrates how Hampton graduates continue to shape conversations about history, identity and social justice through visual art. His work reinforces the University’s enduring commitment to preparing artists whose creative voices engage both scholarship and society.
Environmental photos by activist and photographer J. Henry Fair of the Carolina gold rice and the sinking islands that make up South Carolina’s Low Country remind onlookers to reflect on the social injustices facing Gullah Geechee communities. His work also sheds a light on climate change, rising sea levels, and other factors that disturb coastal waterways.
Together, these works create something that neither history books nor traditional art exhibitions can accomplish alone.
They allow visitors to feel history.
That synthesis of scholarship and artistic expression reflects the vision of Dr. Thaxton-Ward, whose career has been dedicated to preserving African American art as an essential record of American history.
Hampton University’s Role in America’s Story
There may be no institution better suited to tell this story than Hampton University.
Founded in 1868, only five years after the Combahee River Raid, Hampton was established to educate newly emancipated African Americans and Native Americans during Reconstruction. The University itself stands as evidence that freedom required more than liberation. It required education, opportunity and institutions committed to preserving both.
“I wanted to bring this exhibition here for America 250. Our theme is ‘Navigating Freedom,’ and Harriet Tubman was part of navigating freedom. Hampton University was part of navigating freedom,” Thaxton-Ward regarded.
“If we look at the broader African American story, we have been navigating freedom for a long time, and Harriet Tubman absolutely deserves to be recognized as one of those people.”
For more than 150 years, the Hampton University Museum has safeguarded the artistic and cultural legacy of African Americans, ensuring that stories overlooked elsewhere would remain visible for future generations.
That mission resonates deeply as America continues to commemorate its semiquincentennial. America 250 is not simply an opportunity to honor the nation’s founding. It is an invitation to tell a fuller story of how the United States has continually struggled to live up to its founding ideals.
Navigating Freedom, Pushing Forward
Virginia’s “Navigating Freedom” theme recognizes that liberty has always been contested, pursued and redefined by ordinary people whose courage reshaped the nation.
Harriet Tubman was one of those people. So were the hundreds who followed her into uncertain freedom along the Combahee River. So are their descendants, whose lives remind us that history does not end when a battle is won. It continues in every generation that inherits history’s triumphs and its unfinished work.
At Hampton University Museum, visitors discover that history expands beyond remembering famous names. It is about restoring forgotten lives. It is about honoring communities whose resilience shaped the nation. It is about recognizing that freedom is measured not only by those who fought for it but by those who carried it forward.
As America reflects on 250 years of its history, Picturing Freedom: Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Raid offers more a complete understanding of the American story.
One that finally gives Harriet Tubman the humanity she deserves while ensuring that the families she helped free are remembered alongside her.
In doing so, the Hampton University Museum invites every visitor to navigate freedom not as an abstract ideal, but as a living legacy that continues to define who we are and who we aspire to become.
By Mahogany Waldon,
Director of University Communications
About Hampton University
Hampton University is a prestigious Carnegie R2-designated research institution recognized for pioneering work in atmospheric science, cancer research, and cybersecurity. With an annual economic impact of $530 million across the Commonwealth of Virginia, Hampton remains a leading engine of innovation and workforce development.
Founded in 1868, Hampton serves a diverse community of scholars from 44 states and 32 territories. The university is committed to academic excellence, global citizenship, and preparing students to lead with purpose and integrity. Learn more at www.hamptonu.edu
