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News
Journal
February 7, 1991
Going to bat for freedom’s hero
By Edward L. Kenney
Staff Reporter
WILMINGTON.---Before
Vivian Abdur-Rahim left in 1970 to attend Malcom X College
in Chicago, she knew nothing about Thomas Garrett, the man
who helped thousands of slaves find freedom through
Wilmington on the Underground Railroad.
College professors taught
her about Garrett (1789-1871) and his friend Harriet Tubman,
a former slave who escorted escaping slaves northward to
Canada, with stops at friendly stations such as Garrett’s
home.
When Abdur-Rahim returned
to Wilmington from Chicago in 1977, one of the first things
she wanted to do was visit Garrett’s home at 227 Shipley
Street. She was too late.
“I went to that spot and
it wasn’t there,” she said. I was devastated. I couldn’t
believe that. I couldn’t understand how the people of this
city could let that happen.”
While Abdur-Rahim was
away, the famous house and others on that block were razed
to make way for a parking lot at Delaware Technical and
Community College.
Abdur-Rahim, now executive
director of the Harriet Tubman Historical Society, believes
Wilmington missed a chance to recognize one of its most
courageous citizens. She’d like to see the city make up for
what she feels was an unfortunate mistake.
It has been her goal for
more than a year to get Delaware Technical and Community
College to name its Wilmington campus after Garrett the
Quaker abolitionist who ran a hardware store as he helped
more than 2,100 slaves on the Underground Railroad. “This is
such a small thing to do for such a champion of a man, she
said.
Early last year,
Abdur-Rahim wrote to the college’s board of trustees,
suggesting it make the name change. She got a letter back
from Victor F. Battaglia, chairman of the college’s board of
trustees: “I will take your request up with the board at our
next meeting,” he said.
Abdur-Rahim got her
response several months later in The News Journal, when
Battaglia told a reporter: “It is not our practice to name
campuses after historic figures.”
The Terry campus in Dover,
named after former Gov. Charles L. Terry Jr., is an
exception. But Battaglia pointed out that it had been named
through “an act of the legislature opposed by the board of
trustees.”
So Abdur-Rahim changed her
tack. On Jan. 11, she mailed a letter to each of the state’s
legislators, requesting a resolution to make the name
change.
More than two weeks
later, only one legislator had responded: Sen. Harrris B.
McDowell, D-Wilmington North. “He seems to be the only one
supportive,” said Abdur-Rahim, who has since spoke with
someone from his office. “He wants to follow up on
it.
“I’m hoping that during
this [legislative] session someone lights the fire. I’m
hoping that by March 10th somebody will make a
decision, because that’s Harriet Tubman Day. On that day, if
they don’t call me, I will start calling them.”
Abdur-Rahim says Malcolm X
College sparked her interest in “those people who tried to
reach out and assist” blacks’ struggle for freedom: I think
I got hooked on it.” Since she returned to Wilmington, she
has widened her studies about the man who risked his own
life so that others might live free.
“Even in 1939, they were
saying this is a forgotten man,” said Abdur-Rahim, referring
to a newspaper article of that time which said the 150th
anniversary of Garrett’s birthdate had gone unnoticed.
“It was like they were
wiping out a whole page of history. You just don’t do that
to monuments. And to me he was a monument.”
LECTURE ON GARRETT
JAMES A. McGOWAN, author of
“Station Master on the Underground Railroad: The Life and
Letters of Thomas Garrett,” will lecture at 11:30 a.m. Feb.
18 in the Community Use Room of Delaware Technical and
Community College’s Wilmington campus, 333 Shipley Street.
The free program is being held in conjunction with Black
History Month.
The
News Journal, February 7, 1991
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