SV students learn Black history from CMU historian
Seneca Valley Intermediate High School students received a unique lesson on Black history from a Carnegie Mellon University professor Friday, Feb. 7.
Edda L. Fields-Black, a historian and director of the Dietrich College Humanities Center at CMU, gave a lecture to Seneca Valley students on Harriet Tubman and topics surrounding her new book, “COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War.”
The lecture was part of a Classrooms without Borders speaker series happening at Seneca Valley. Fields-Black, a Classrooms without Borders scholar, was the first speaker of the series for this school year.
“I love doing school visits. I think it’s important as professors to get our knowledge out of Oakland and into the hands of students,” Fields-Black said.
Fields-Black, who has done work in South Carolina, said one of the specific areas she has studied is in rice farms in the south and the impact such farms had on slavery. This has inspired her to research the Combahee River Raid, the largest slave rebellion in history, and related events.
Her book focuses on little-known chapters of Harriet Tubman’s life. The main topic of her research was based around Tubman being sent to South Carolina during the Civil War to work as a spy for the Union Army. Tubman helped lead the 2nd South Carolina Voluntary Infantry Regiment on a raid up the Combahee River to attack South Carolina rice plantations, which provided important resources for the Confederacy. The raid, according to Fields-Black’s research, liberated 756 people.
Fields-Black’s connection to the history topics are also personal. She is a direct descendant of a previously enslaved man who played a pivotal role in the Combahee River Raid during the Civil War.
“I want them to understand more about the Civil War, and the role of African Americans in it,” Fields-Black said. “Harriet Tubman, as well as the second South Carolina. I would like to them to know more about some of the challenges of African American history, particularly in the 19th century, and to get more of an understanding about slavery.”
Fields-Black told students about the process she went through in her research, which largely included finding hold pension files from Union soldiers in the 1800s. Students learned about Tubman’s actions for the Union Army, as well as her later life, such as participating in women’s suffrage activism.
