With the news that the US treasury department will put Harriet Tubman on the $20 Bill, we wonder if the Albany Free School students project might have helped in some way. In 2003 a group of Free School students discovered that Tubman had worked as a spy for the Union forces but had never been compensated for it. In today's Newsday it said: "She worked as a scout, as a spy. One night during the Combahee River raid she led Union gunboats up river to liberate more that 750 slaves, deep in the heart of Confederate territory. Because she was working as a spy, she didn't have the proper documentation, so after the war she couldn't file for a pension..." Here's an article about their successful fight to get that compensation and preserve the Tubman House.
In addition, the Free School helped establish a democratic high school named after Harriet Tubman.
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