Abstract
This track draws on BlackMothering to frame Harriet Tubman not only as a conductor of freedom but as an architect of ancestral technology, designing strategies of survival that continue to instruct contemporary struggles. Tubman’s praxis—relational, anticipatory, and collective—illuminates the enduring power of Black knowledge systems to chart pathways through systems of violence and oppression. In conversation with Tiffani Marie and Kenjus Watson’s theorization of Apocalyptic Education and what Django Paris and H. Samy Alim describe as culturally sustaining pedagogy, this track explores how Tubman’s Underground Railroad praxis offers a blueprint for Black sustainability using (a) health and survival, (b) spatial intelligence, (c) communication networks, and (d) abolitionist infrastructures. Positioning Tubman as both an ancestor and a futurist, the track argues that her model of liberation provides a framework for understanding how Black ancestral wisdom, passed down through generations, functions as a technological system that guides communities through peril and sustains their survival.
Recommended Citation
Lynch, J. (2026). Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad as Ancestral Technology for Black Futures. Black Educology Mixtape "Journal", 4(1). Retrieved from https://repository.usfca.edu/be/vol4/iss1/6