The North Star and the Conductor Who Never Looked Down

Harriet Tubman led nineteen missions through the Underground Railroad, guiding more than three hundred men, women, and children from the plantations of Maryland to freedom in the North. She moved at night, through swamps and dense forest, with slave catchers and their dogs sometimes close enough to hear. She was asked once how she kept her bearings in the dark, and her answer was simple: she looked up.…