Recently we went with friends to a showing of Harriet a novelized film about Harriet Tubman. It was not a documentary but rather a feature film. As you probably know Harriet Tubman was an escaped slave who became a conductor on the under ground railroad freeing scores of slaves from their bandage toward a life of freedom in the northern free states. The story approach gave a stronger feeling of her life and work than might have happened in a documentary. It was notable that while the film demonstrated the horror of slavery, it did so without using graphic and excessively violent images. It is sometimes easy to lose the point of a film when we are overwhelmed by visual images of such intensity that they nearly block out rational thought. The religious themes of the film were handled with sensitivity rather than sentimentality. The emotional impact was heightened by the less intense approach. It was fascinating to see how the songs the slaves sang became a code to share with each other in ways that the masters did not see. Tubman’s courage, resourcefulness, and passion were on full display. She was known among the slaves as Moses, a protective code name with the obvious parallels to the Israelites bondage in Egypt and Moses as liberator. One of the most memorable lines in the movie has Harriet Tubman having her former slave owner at disadvantage when she says “God doesn’t want people to own other people.” Harriet is a thoughtful and through provoking film worthy of consideration.