Harriet Tubman Museum - Take My Hand

Photo: NPS Photo, public domain (cropped)

A stop on Harriet Tubman, a free self-guided tour.

You are standing on Race Street in the county seat of the place Harriet Tubman called home for her first 27 years. On the side wall of the Harriet Tubman Museum and Educational Center, Dorchester County artist Michael Rosato painted Take My Hand in 2019. Tubman, larger than life, reaches one hand toward you, as if the road north begins right here on the sidewalk.

The museum is a community-run storefront, and Rosato has been covering its inside walls with more murals, including a room that places you inside the Bucktown store where a teenage Tubman was nearly killed. It closed for repairs in the summer of 2026, so call 410-228-0401 before counting on the interior. The mural is outdoors and always there.

This tour follows much of the official Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway and moves through her life from birth to the night she drove her parents out of Caroline County in 1857. Along the way it keeps a clear line between what the records show and what local tradition says. Before you leave, step up to the painted hand and take a moment with her.

Getting here: Park on Race Street or a nearby side street in downtown Cambridge; the mural faces the street at number 424.

Did you know?: Soon after the mural was finished, a photo of a little girl reaching up to touch Tubman's painted hand spread around the world on social media.

Photo op: Stand across Race Street to fit the whole mural in the frame, or have a friend photograph you reaching for her hand.

Nearby: Restaurants, coffee and public restrooms are a short walk away in downtown Cambridge.

More on Wikipedia: Harriet Tubman · Cambridge, Maryland

Harriet Tubman Museum - Take My Hand

Stops on this tour