The Promise of Poolesville
The Freedom Walk Rally Showcased the Heart of the Community
story and Photos by Paul Tukey
MY WHOLE FAMILY had excitedly visited Button Farm in the spring of 2023 to see the Harriet Tubman Journey to Freedom sculpture up close. During our visit, people of many other backgrounds had also made their pilgrimage to Germantown to honor their heroine. I recall that some folks that day giggled with joy; others cried, as if attending a wake for a life recently ended. Still others sat silently.
Historian Anthony Cohen, whose work documenting and showcasing the Underground Railroad put Button Farm on the national map beginning in 2004, told me the reaction to the 3,000-pounds of molded and carved bronze, by sculptor Wesley Wofford of North Carolina, was often deeply personal, sometimes profound.
Once upon a time, beginning May 4, 1996, Tony began a twomonth break in his education and work schedule after deciding— as unattached thirty-somethings can still do— to go for a long walk. For more than 750 miles, the Black son of Montgomery County searched for traces of Harriet Tubman’ s footsteps between Maryland and Canada. What he realized he had found, six weeks later, was his life’ s calling as one of the nation’ s leading experts on the“ conductors” who risked their lives to lead enslaved Africans to freedom.
Last December, just prior to Christmas, Tony called me with an invitation to lunch. People’ s reaction to the sculpture had stuck with him, he said, as he began to reveal his larger-than-life idea to celebrate America and Montgomery County’ s 250th birthdays:
24 plenty I autumn harvest 2026