McCallie School commemorates Black History Month in February and will kick off the month with a special presentation by Natalie Daise and her one-woman tribute to American hero Harriet Tubman.
Miss Daise will give a presentation to the McCallie student body on Friday. The public is invited free of charge to a Saturday performance at 7 p.m. in the McCallie Chapel.
Harriet Tubman was a leader in the Underground Railroad in the 1800s. The Underground Railroad was a network of people, both black and white, who assisted slaves from the south escape to the north. Miss Tubman ran away from her owner in Maryland at age 29 and reached freedom in Pennsylvania. Over time, she made 19 return trips to the south and helped more than 300 slaves to freedom.
In “Becoming Harriet Tubman,” Miss Daise portrays five people at different stages of Miss Tubman’s life. Through narrative and music, she tells the story of how a seemingly insignificant little girl becomes an historical icon.
Miss Daise is a nationally-known storyteller, performer and speaker. She was a star of the children’s television show “Gullah Gullah Island” in the late 1990s which was named one of the 10 best children's shows by TV Guide in 1996. In 1997 it was nominated for a daytime Emmy Award in the outstanding preschool series category.
“To become a person like Harriet, where you began is really important,” Miss Daise said in a May article in the Charleston Post and Courier. “In my show, I want people to see that you don’t have to be born with anything extra to become something special.”