Saturday morning, the city of Auburn and Harriet Tubman Home, Inc. unveiled the Harriet Tubman - The Journey to Freedom Statue for the bicentennial year of Tubman’s life.

“This place is hallowed grown for us,” said Harriet Tubman Home, Inc. president and CEO Dr. Dennis V. Proctor.

Bicycle clubs, camps and tourists traveled from all over the country for the 200th anniversary of Harriet Tubman by visiting her home and the statue.

“This is a culmination of a lot of people with effort especially the sculptor who said he felt the vibes of Harriet Tubman coming through the centuries to make this a reality,” Proctor said.

The sculptor, Wesley Wofford from North Carolina says this project was about 18 months.

“The original copy, we put photos on social media just to share this is what we’ve been working on for 18-months,” sculptor Wesley Wofford said. “The public reaction to that piece was overwhelming. So out of that we felt it was our responsibility to cast a copy so people could access it and travel around.”

Wofford says the traveling exhibition for the replica started in the beginning of 2020. The original sculpture is nine feet tall and its home is in Dallas, Texas.

“It’s humbling to take someone of such importance and heroism and the responsibility of trying to amplify that voice or tell that story is intimidating and humbling,” Wofford said.

The statue will be on display in Auburn until August and it will continue its tour into Rochester.