The Spirit of Harriet Tubman

Experience history through “The Spirit of Harriet Tubman” as actress Diane Faison brings the famed abolitionist to life in a performance at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 9, at the George Washington Carver Community Enrichment Center (GWCCEC). The one-woman show is sponsored by the Friends of the Library and the GWCCEC, which is located at 950 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Asheboro. Tubman, born in 1822, escaped a brutal existence as a slave to found the Underground Railroad and advocate tirelessly for abolition. She led troops in the United States Army during the Civil War, and afterwards became an advocate for women’s suffrage. Faison, on retiring after 25 years as an art teacher in North Carolina and Virginia, wanted students to feel history, rather than just researching it. She studied Tubman’s life and developed her one-woman play, which her husband, a history teacher, asked her to perform for his students. Since then, she has performed multiple times each month for close to 30 years in schools, colleges, libraries, churches and retirement homes. Faison, who resides in Winston-Salem, holds a bachelors of arts in art appreciation from North Carolina Central University. She has received grants from the Winston-Salem and Alamance arts councils, and the Puffin Foundation.