Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War

This session is sponsored by the American Historical Association.

Join Edda Fields-Black (Carnegie-Mellon Univ.), Kate Masur (Northwestern Univ.), and Erica Ball (Occidental Coll.) for a discussion on Dr. Fields-Black’s book, Combee, which details the story of the Combahee River Raid, one of Harriet Tubman's most extraordinary accomplishments, based on original documents and written by a descendant of one of the participants. Fields-Black shows how Tubman commanded a ring of spies, scouts, and pilots and participated in military expeditions behind Confederate lines.

Dr. Edda L. Fields-Black teaches history at Carnegie Mellon University and has written extensively about the history of West African rice farmers, including in such works as Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora. She was a co-editor of Rice: Global Networks and New Histories, which was selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. Fields-Black has served as a consultant for the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture's permanent exhibit, "Rice Fields of the Lowcountry." She is the executive producer and librettist of "Unburied, Unmourned, Unmarked: Requiem for Rice," a widely performed original contemporary classical work by celebrated composer John Wineglass.

With comments from Kate Masur (Northwestern University) & Erica L. Ball (Occidental College).

The Washington History Seminar is co-chaired by Eric Arnesen (George Washington University) and Christian Ostermann (Woodrow Wilson Center) and is organized jointly by the American Historical Association and the Woodrow Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. It meets weekly during the academic year. The seminar thanks its anonymous individual donors and institutional partner (the George Washington University History Department) for their continued support.