The Bridge
Harriet Tubman led military raids during the Civil War as well as her better-known slave rescues
Harriet Tubman, renowned for her vital role in the Underground Railroad, also served as a Civil War spy and leader, fighting for freedom and equality despite enduring systemic racism and discrimination.
Kate Clifford Larson, Brandeis University
Harriet Tubman was barely 5 feet tall and didn’t have a dime to her name.
What she did have was a deep faith and powerful passion for justice that was fueled by a network of Black and white abolitionists determined to end slavery in America.
“I had reasoned this out in my mind,” Tubman once told an interviewer. “There was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive.”
Though Tubman is most famous for her successes along the Underground Railroad, her activities as a Civil War spy are less well known.
As a biographer of Tubman, I think this is a shame. Her devotion to America and its promise of freedom endured despite suffering decades of enslavement and second class citizenship.
It is only in modern times that her life is receiving the renown it deserves, most notably her likeness appearing on a US$20 bill in 2030. The Harriet Tubman $20 bill will replace the current one featuring a portrait of U.S. President Andrew Jackson.
In another recognition, Tubman was accepted in June 2021 to the United States Army Military Intelligence Corps Hall of Fame at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. She is one of 278 members, 17 of whom are women, honored for their special operations leadership and intelligence work.
Though traditional accolades escaped Tubman for most of her life, she did achieve an honor usually reserved for white officers on the Civil War battlefield.
After she led a successful raid of a Confederate outpost in South Carolina that saw 750 Black people rescued from slavery, a white commanding officer fetched a pitcher of water for Tubman as she remained seated at a table.
A different education
Believed to have been born in March 1822 in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman was named Araminta by her enslaved parents, Rit and Ben Ross.
“Minty” was the fifth of nine Ross children. She was frequently separated from her family by her white enslaver, Edward Brodess, who started leasing her to white neighbors when she was just 6 years old.
At their hands, she endured physical abuse, harsh labor, poor nutrition and intense loneliness.
As I learned during my research into Tubman’s life, her education did not happen in a traditional classroom, but instead was crafted from the dirt. She learned to read the natural world – forests and fields, rivers and marshes, the clouds and stars.
She learned to walk silently across fields and through the woods at night with no lights to guide her. She foraged for food and learned a botanist’s and chemist’s knowledge of edible and poisonous plants – and those most useful for ingredients in medical treatments.
She could not swim, and that forced her to learn the ways of rivers and streams – their depths, currents and traps.
She studied people, learned their habits, watched their movements – all without being noticed. Most important, she also figured out how to distinguish character. Her survival depended on her ability to remember every detail.
After a brain injury left her with recurring seizures, she was still able to work at jobs often reserved for men. She toiled on the shipping docks and learned the secret communication and transportation networks of Black mariners.
Known as Black Jacks, these men traveled throughout the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic seaboard. With them, she studied the night sky and the placement and movement of the constellations.
She used all those skills to navigate on the water and land.
“… and I prayed to God,” she told one friend, “to make me strong and able to fight, and that’s what I’ve always prayed for ever since.”
Tubman was clear on her mission. “I should fight for my liberty,” she told an admirer, “as long as my strength lasted.”
The Moses of the Underground Railroad
In the fall of 1849, when she was about to be sold away from her family and free husband John Tubman, she fled Maryland to freedom in Philadelphia.
Between 1850 and 1860, she returned to the Eastern Shore of Maryland about 13 times and successfully rescued nearly 70 friends and family members, all of whom were enslaved. It was an extraordinary feat given the perils of the 1850 Slave Fugitive Act, which enabled anyone to capture and return any Black man or woman, regardless of legal status, to slavery.
Those leadership qualities and survival skills earned her the nickname “Moses” because of her work on the Underground Railroad, the interracial network of abolitionists who enabled Black people to escape from slavery in the South to freedom in the North and Canada.
As a result, she attracted influential abolitionists and politicians who were struck by her courage and resolve – men like William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown and Frederick Douglass. Susan B. Anthony, one of the world’s leading activists for women’s equal rights, also knew of Tubman, as did abolitionist Lucretia Mott and women’s rights activist Amy Post.
“I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years,” Tubman once said. “and I can say what most conductors can’t say; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”
Battlefield soldier
When the Civil War started in the spring of 1861, Tubman put aside her fight against slavery to conduct combat as a soldier and spy for the United States Army. She offered her services to a powerful politician.
Known for his campaign to form the all-Black 54th and 55th regiments, Massachusetts Gov. John Andrew admired Tubman and thought she would be a great intelligence asset for the Union forces.
He arranged for her to go to Beaufort, South Carolina, to work with Army officers in charge of the recently captured Hilton Head District.
There, she provided nursing care to soldiers and hundreds of newly liberated people who crowded Union camps. Tubman’s skill curing soldiers stricken by a variety of diseases became legendary.
But it was her military service of spying and scouting behind Confederate lines that earned her the highest praise.
She recruited eight men and together they skillfully infiltrated enemy territory. Tubman made contact with local enslaved people who secretly shared their knowledge of Confederate movements and plans.
Wary of white Union soldiers, many local African Americans trusted and respected Tubman.
According to George Garrison, a second lieutenant with the 55th Massachusetts Regiment, Tubman secured “more intelligence from them than anybody else.”
In early June 1863, she became the first woman in U.S. history to command an armed military raid when she guided Col. James Montgomery and his 2nd South Carolina Colored Volunteers Regiment along the Combahee River.
While there, they routed Confederate outposts, destroyed stores of cotton, food and weapons – and liberated over 750 enslaved people.
The Union victory was widely celebrated. Newspapers from Boston to Wisconsin reported on the river assault by Montgomery and his Black regiment, noting Tubman’s important role as the “Black she Moses … who led the raid, and under whose inspiration it was originated and conducted.”
Ten days after the successful attack, radical abolitionist and soldier Francis Jackson Merriam witnessed Maj. Gen. David Hunter, commander of the Hilton Head district, “go and fetch a pitcher of water and stand waiting with it in his hand while a black woman drank, as if he had been one of his own servants.”
In that letter to Gov. Andrew, Merriam added, “that woman was Harriet Tubman.”
Lifelong struggle
Despite earning commendations as a valuable scout and soldier, Tubman still faced the racism and sexism of America after the Civil War.
When she sought payment for her service as a spy, the U.S. Congress denied her claim. It paid the eight Black male scouts, but not her.
Unlike the Union officers who knew her, the congressmen did not believe – they could not imagine – that she had served her country like the men under her command, because she was a woman.
Gen. Rufus Saxton wrote that he bore “witness to the value of her services… She was employed in the Hospitals and as a spy [and] made many a raid inside the enemy’s lines displaying remarkable courage, zeal and fidelity.”
Thirty years later, in 1899, Congress awarded her a pension for her service as a Civil War nurse, but not as a soldier spy.
When she died from pneumonia on March 10, 1913, she was believed to have been 91 years old and had been fighting for gender equality and the right to vote as a free Black woman for more than 50 years after her work during the Civil War.
Surrounded by friends and family, the deeply religious Tubman showed one last sign of leadership, telling them: “I go to prepare a place for you.”
Kate Clifford Larson, Professor of History, Brandeis University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime Show Fits the NFL’s Long Game to Win Latin America
The NFL aims to expand its reach into Latin America through strategic marketing and high-profile performers like Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl halftime show. While the choice has sparked controversy, particularly among conservatives, the league sees it as a business move to attract more fans, particularly in Mexico and Brazil.
Last Updated on February 7, 2026 by Daily News Staff
Jared Bahir Browsh, University of Colorado Boulder
Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl show is part of long play drawn up by NFL to score with Latin America
Donald Trump, it is fair to assume, will be switching channels during this year’s Super Bowl halftime show.
The U.S. president has already said that he won’t be attending Super Bowl LX in person, suggesting that the venue, Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, was “just too far away.” But the choice of celebrity entertainment planned for the main break – Puerto Rican reggaeton star Bad Bunny and recently announced pregame addition Green Day – didn’t appeal. “I’m anti-them. I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible,” Trump told the New York Post.
National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell likely didn’t have the sensibilities of the U.S. president in mind when the choice of Bad Bunny was made.
One of the top artists in the world, Bad Bunny performs primarily in Spanish and has been critical of immigration enforcement, which factored into the backlash in some conservative circles to the choice. Bad Bunny’s anti-ICE comments at this year’s Grammy Awards will have only stoked the ire of some conservatives.
But for the NFL hierarchy, this was likely a business decision, not a political one. The league has its eyes on expansion into Latin America; Bad Bunny, they hope, will be a ratings-winning means to an end. It has made such bets in the past. In 2020, Shakira and Jennifer Lopez were chosen to perform, with Bad Bunny making an appearance. The choice then, too, was seen as controversial.
Raising the flag overseas
As a teacher and scholar of critical sports studies, I study the global growth of U.S.-based sports leagues overseas.
Some, like the National Basketball Association, are at an advantage. The sport is played around the globe and has large support bases in Asia – notably in the Philippines and China – as well as in Europe, Australia and Canada.
The NFL, by contrast, is largely entering markets that have comparatively little knowledge and experience with football and its players.
The league has opted for a multiprong approach to attracting international fans, including lobbying to get flag football into the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Playing the field
When it comes to the traditional tackle game, the NFL has held global aspirations for over three-quarters of a century. Between 1950-1961, before they merged, the NFL and American Football League played seven games against teams in Canada’s CFL to strengthen the relationship between the two nations’ leagues.
Developing a fan base south of the border has long been part of the plan.
The first international exhibition game between two NFL teams was supposed to take place in Mexico City in 1968. But Mexican protest over the economy and cost of staging the Olympics that year led the game, between the Detroit Lions and Philadelphia Eagles, to be canceled.
Instead, it was Montreal that staged the first international exhibition match the following year.
In 1986, the NFL added an annual international preseason game, the “American Bowl,” to reach international fans, including several games in Mexico City and one in Monterrey.
But the more concerted effort was to grow football in the potentially lucrative, and familiar, European market.
After several attempts by the NFL and other entities in the 1970s and ’80s to establish an international football league, the NFL-backed World League of Football launched in 1991. Featuring six teams from the United States, one from Canada and three from Europe, the spring league lost money but provided evidence that there was a market for American football in Europe, leading to the establishment of NFL Europe.
But NFL bosses have long had wider ambitions. The league staged 13 games in Tokyo, beginning in 1976, and planned exhibitions for 2007 and 2009 in China that were ultimately canceled. These attempts did not have the same success as in Europe.
Beyond exhibitions
The NFL’s outreach in Latin America has been decades in the making. After six exhibition matches in Mexico between 1978 and 2001, the NFL chose Mexico City as the venue of its first regular season game outside the United States.
In 2005, it pitted the Arizona Cardinals against the San Francisco 49ers at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. Marketed as “Fútbol Americano,” it drew the largest attendance in NFL history, with over 103,000 spectators.
The following year, Goodell was named commissioner and announced that the NFL would focus future international efforts on regular-season games.
The U.K. was a safe bet due to the established stadium infrastructure and the country’s small but passionate fan base. The NFL International Series was played exclusively in London between 2007 and 2016.
But in 2016, the NFL finally returned to Mexico City, staging a regular-season game between the Oakland – now Las Vegas – Raiders and Houston Texans.
And after the completion of upgrades to Latin America’s largest stadium, Estadio Azteca, the NFL will return to Mexico City in 2026, along with games in Munich, Berlin and London. Future plans include expanding the series to include Sydney, Australia, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2026.
The International Player Pathway program also offers players from outside the United States an opportunity to train and earn a roster spot on an NFL team. The hope is that future Latin American players could help expand the sport in their home countries, similar to how Yao Ming expanded the NBA fan base in China after joining the Houston Rockets, and Shohei Ohtani did the same for baseball in Japan while playing in Los Angeles.
Heading south of the border
The NFL’s strategy has gained the league a foothold in Latin America.
Mexico and Brazil have become the two largest international markets for the NFL, with nearly 40 million fans in each of the nations.
Although this represents a fraction of the overall sports fans in each nation, the raw numbers match the overall Latino fan base in the United States. In recent years the NFL has celebrated Latino Heritage Month through its Por La Cultura campaign, highlighting Latino players past and present.
Latin America also offers practical advantages. Mexico has long had access to NFL games as the southern neighbor to the United States, with the Dallas Cowboys among the most popular teams in Mexico.
For broadcasters, Central and South America offer less disruption in regards to time zones. Games in Europe start as early as 6:30 a.m. for West Coast fans, whereas Mexico City follows Central time, and Brasilia time is only one to two hours ahead of Eastern time.
The NFL’s expansion plans are not without criticism. Domestically, fans have complained that teams playing outside the U.S. borders means one less home game for season-ticket holders. And some teams have embraced international games more than others.
Another criticism is the league, which has reported revenues of over US$23 billion during the 2024-25 season – nearly double any other U.S.-based league – is using its resources to displace local sports. There are also those who see expansion of the league as a form of cultural imperialism. These criticisms often intersect with long-held ideas around the league promoting militarism, nationalism and American exceptionalism.
Bad Bunny: No Hail Mary attempt
For sure, the choice of Bad Bunny as the halftime pick is controversial, given the current political climate around immigration. The artist removed tour dates on the U.S. mainland in 2025 due to concerns about ICE targeting fans at his concerts, a concern reinforced by threats from the Department of Homeland Security that they would do just that at the Super Bowl.
But in sticking with Bad Bunny, the NFL is showing it is willing to face down a section of its traditional support and bet instead on Latin American fans not just tuning in for the halftime show but for the whole game – and falling in love with football, too.
Jared Bahir Browsh, Assistant Teaching Professor of Critical Sports Studies, University of Colorado Boulder
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Chinamaxxing: The Viral Trend Turning Geopolitics Into Aesthetic Fantasy
A viral social media trend called “Chinamaxxing” is turning geopolitics into aesthetic comparison—revealing more about generational frustration than China itself.
At first glance, the videos seem harmless enough.
Clean subways gliding into spotless stations. Neon skylines glowing at night. Clips of high-speed trains, cashless stores, orderly crowds. Overlaid text reads something like, “Meanwhile in China…” or “They figured it out.”
This is “Chinamaxxing,” a loosely defined but increasingly visible social media trend where mostly young users frame China as a model of efficiency, stability, and modernity—often in contrast to life in the West.
What makes the trend notable isn’t just its subject, but its tone. Chinamaxxing is rarely explicit political advocacy. It’s not a manifesto. It’s a mood. Aesthetic admiration blended with subtle critique, delivered through short, visually compelling clips that invite comparison without context.
And that’s precisely why it has sparked debate.
What Is “Chinamaxxing,” Really?
Despite the provocative name, Chinamaxxing isn’t a coordinated movement or ideology. It’s better understood as an algorithm-driven pattern—a recurring style of content that rewards certain visuals and emotional cues.
Most Chinamaxxing content emphasizes:
- Infrastructure and urban design
- Technology embedded in daily life
- Perceived order and efficiency
- Implicit contrast with Western dysfunction
What it typically omits:
- Political repression and censorship
- State surveillance
- Limits on speech and dissent
- The lived diversity of Chinese experiences
The result is a highly curated portrayal—less about China as a nation, and more about what viewers want to believe is possible somewhere else.
Why It’s Gaining Traction Now
The rise of Chinamaxxing says as much about the West as it does about China.
For many young users, particularly Gen Z, the backdrop is familiar: rising housing costs, student debt, healthcare anxiety, political polarization, and a growing sense that institutions no longer function as promised.
In that environment, visually persuasive content showing order and functionality carries emotional weight. It offers relief from chaos—real or perceived.
Social platforms amplify this effect. Short-form video rewards clarity, contrast, and immediacy. A clean subway platform communicates more in five seconds than a policy analysis ever could. Nuance does not trend well. Aesthetics do.
The Social and Political Criticism
Critics argue Chinamaxxing crosses a line from curiosity into distortion.
By focusing exclusively on infrastructure and surface-level efficiency, the trend risks:
- Normalizing authoritarian governance through lifestyle framing
- Reducing political systems to consumer experiences
- Ignoring the tradeoffs that make such systems possible
Supporters counter that Western media has long flattened China into a single negative narrative, and that admiration for specific aspects of another society is not the same as endorsing its government.
Both perspectives, however, miss something important.
What the Trend Actually Reveals
Chinamaxxing isn’t primarily about China. It’s about disillusionment.
It reflects a generation that:
- Feels let down by existing systems
- Engages politics emotionally rather than institutionally
- Uses visual culture to express dissatisfaction indirectly
In this context, China becomes a projection surface—not because it is perfect, but because it appears functional.
That distinction matters.
Why This Matters
Chinamaxxing highlights how political understanding is evolving in the digital age. Governance is increasingly consumed not through debate or civic participation, but through comparison clips, memes, and aesthetics.
The risk isn’t admiration. It’s oversimplification.
When complex societies are reduced to visuals alone, public discourse loses depth. But when those visuals resonate, they also signal real unmet needs: stability, competence, and trust in institutions.
Ignoring that signal would be a mistake.
The STM Daily News Perspective
Chinamaxxing is not an endorsement, a conspiracy, or a joke. It is a cultural artifact—one that reflects generational anxiety, algorithmic storytelling, and the widening gap between expectations and reality.
The question it raises isn’t whether China is better.
It’s why so many people feel their own systems are no longer working.
Related Reading
- BBC News: China Coverage and Global Context
- The Atlantic: Technology, Media, and Internet Culture Analysis
- Pew Research Center: Global Attitudes and Political Perception
- The New York Times: China and International Affairs
- Brookings Institution: China Policy and Global Governance
More on This Topic from STM Daily News
Stay tuned to STM Daily News for more stories exploring internet culture, social media trends, and how digital platforms shape public perception. We’ll be publishing in-depth pieces that break down the societal impact of viral phenomena like Chinamaxxing, the psychology behind online political trends, and the evolving language of Gen Z culture.
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A Legacy of Service: How family stories shape service
Legacy of Service: Discover how military service creates lasting family legacies across generations. Explore powerful veteran stories from the Veterans History Project, including Pearl Harbor survivors and Code Talkers, and learn how to preserve your family’s service history.
Last Updated on February 6, 2026 by Daily News Staff
A Legacy of Service: How family stories shape service
(Family Features) Major historical events like war or military service make a lasting impact on family identity, values and traditions, often reverberating across multiple generations. Veterans frequently speak about their military units as if they were family, given the unbreakable bonds that develop between comrades. However, for some veterans, “brothers in arms” is more than a figurative turn of phrase. Throughout the 20th century, entire families felt the firsthand effects of war, with multiple generations serving. Brothers enlisted together. A father’s military legacy inspired his children to join up. Sweethearts met and married while in uniform. These stories not only illustrate the experiences of individual veterans but also provide an intimate glimpse into family legacies of military service. Consider the Veterans History Project, a program overseen by the Library of Congress, which collects and preserves the firsthand remembrances of U.S. military veterans and makes them accessible for future generations to better understand veterans’ service and sacrifice. These personal stories encompass original correspondence, memoirs, diaries, photographs and oral history interviews, all offering deeper insight into the long-term impact of military service. Veterans’ narratives are collected by volunteers, and anyone who served from World War I to today can submit their personal story, regardless of whether or not they saw combat. The collections frequently shed light on the importance of family in military experiences. Whether expressed through heartfelt letters home, enduring family legacies of service or the experience of serving alongside loved ones, these stories reflect profound connections.
Family Identity During the Cold War, Jennifer McNeill rose from Army Dental Assistant to Command Sergeant Major at the Army Eisenhower Medical Center in Fort Gordon, Georgia. Her collection includes a poignant photograph of her mother sharing images of her four military daughters in uniform, underscoring how family identity and military service are closely connected. Values Military service makes a lasting impression on veterans, shaping the experiences and the values that guide them through life. Ray Chavez is one such example. He was the oldest known Pearl Harbor survivor before his passing in 2018. For most of his life, he remained silent about his experiences, but in 1991, his daughter, Kathleen Chavez, who served in the U.S. Navy during Desert Storm, convinced him to return to Pearl Harbor. That trip marked the first time he spoke openly about his service. Kathleen shared their family’s deep military legacy in her oral history for the Veterans History Project. Traditions Across Generations Serving in the military is a deeply personal journey, but for many veterans, it’s an experience that transcends generations. Bill Toledo enlisted in the Marine Corps in October 1942 at the age of 18. Along with his uncle, Frank Toledo, and cousin, Preston Toledo, he served as a Code Talker transmitting military messages through secret codes. In his oral history, Bill vividly recalled both the challenges of combat during the invasion of Iwo Jima in February 1945, and the treasured moments spent with his uncle. These and many other family stories of military service and remembrance are available to the public at loc.gov/vets. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock (men looking at scrapbook)
Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress (man and woman on park bench) Author
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