
Night Flyer
Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $15.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Janina Edwards
About this listen
From the National Book Award-winning author of All That She Carried, an intimate and revelatory reckoning with the myth and the truth behind an American everyone knows and few really understand
Harriet Tubman is among the most famous Americans ever born and soon to be the face of the twenty-dollar bill. Yet often she’s a figure more out of myth than history, almost a comic-book superhero. Despite being barely five feet tall, unable to read, and suffering from a brain injury, she managed to escape from her own enslavement, return again and again to lead others north to freedom without loss of life, speak out powerfully against slavery, and then become the first American woman in history to lead a military raid, freeing some seven hundred people. You could almost say she’s America’s Robin Hood, a miraculous vision, often rightly celebrated but seldom understood.
Tiya Miles’s extraordinary Night Flyer changes all that. With her characteristic tenderness and imaginative genius, Miles explores beyond the stock historical grid to weave Tubman’s life into the fabric of her world. She probes the ecological reality of Tubman’s surroundings and examines her kinship with other enslaved women who similarly passed through a spiritual wilderness and recorded those travels in profound and moving memoirs. What emerges, uncannily, is a human being whose mysticism becomes more palpable the more we understand it—a story that offers us powerful inspiration for our own time of troubles. Harriet Tubman traversed many boundaries, inner and outer. Now, thanks to Tiya Miles, she becomes an even clearer and sharper signal from the past, one that can help us to echolocate a more just and sustainable path.
©2024 Mora-Catlett Family (P)2024 Penguin AudioCritic reviews
“Miles is one of our greatest living historians and a beautiful writer to boot . . . As in all her work, Miles fleshes out the complexity, humanity, and social and emotional world of her subject.”—The Millions, Most Anticipated
“Miles goes beyond standard biographies by foregrounding two aspects of Tubman’s life that have rarely been analyzed together: her religious faith and her deep understanding of ecology . . . Miles’ thoughtful engagement with Tubman’s contemporaries allows her to place the icon within a proud lineage of Black female mystics and preachers. . . . A truly unique analysis.”—Booklist
“National Book Award winner Miles chronicles and contextualizes Tubman’s work to lead enslaved people to freedom in the North, spotlighting her subject’s spiritual conviction and naturalistic know-how. . . . A notable, discerning contribution to the understanding of an American legend.”—Kirkus
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Cherokee Rose
- A Novel of Gardens and Ghosts
- By: Tiya Miles
- Narrated by: Shayna Small, Tiya Miles
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Conducting research for her weekly history column, Jinx, a free-spirited Muscogee (Creek) historian, travels to Hold House, a Georgia plantation originally owned by Cherokee chief James Hold, to uncover the mystery of what happened to a tribal member who stayed behind after Indian removal, when Native Americans were forcibly displaced from their ancestral homelands in the nineteenth century.
-
-
Wonderful writing and Interesting History
- By Amazon Customer on 08-03-23
By: Tiya Miles
-
Toni at Random
- The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship
- By: Dana A. Williams
- Narrated by: Deanna Anthony
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An insightful exploration that unveils the lesser-known dimensions of this legendary writer and her legacy, revealing the cultural icon’s profound impact as a visionary editor who helped define an important period in American publishing and literature.
By: Dana A. Williams
-
All That She Carried
- The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
- By: Tiya Miles
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag for her with a few items, and, soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the sack in spare, haunting language. Historian Tiya Miles carefully traces these women’s faint presence in archival records, and, where archives fall short, she turns to objects, art, and the environment to write a singular history of slavery.
-
-
An Astonishing Feat of Scholarship, Imagination and Empathy
- By Cin on 06-30-21
By: Tiya Miles
-
Combee
- Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War
- By: Dr. Edda L. Fields-Black
- Narrated by: Machelle Williams
- Length: 25 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of the Combahee River Raid, one of Harriet Tubman's most extraordinary accomplishments, based on original documents and written by a descendant of one of the participants: Edda L. Fields-Black shows how Tubman commanded a ring of spies, scouts, and pilots and participated in military expeditions behind Confederate lines. On June 2, 1863, Tubman and her crew piloted two regiments of Black US Army soldiers, the Second South Carolina Volunteers, and their white commanders up coastal South Carolina's Combahee River in three gunboats.
-
-
Bringing the forgotten to life
- By GAT on 07-16-24
-
We're Alone
- Essays
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Edwidge Danticat
- Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tracing a loose arc from Edwidge Danticat’s childhood to the COVID-19 pandemic and recent events in Haiti, the essays gathered in We’re Alone include personal narrative, reportage, and tributes to mentors and heroes such as Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Gabriel García Márquez, and James Baldwin that explore several abiding themes: environmental catastrophe, the traumas of colonialism, motherhood, and the complexities of resilience.
-
-
Always a story to tell
- By TAE on 10-09-24
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
Harriet Tubman
- The Road to Freedom
- By: Catherine Clinton
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Celebrated for her courageous exploits as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman has entered history as one of 19th-century America's most enduring and important figures. But just who was this remarkable woman?
-
-
Returning this book
- By KMS on 07-11-18
-
The Cherokee Rose
- A Novel of Gardens and Ghosts
- By: Tiya Miles
- Narrated by: Shayna Small, Tiya Miles
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Conducting research for her weekly history column, Jinx, a free-spirited Muscogee (Creek) historian, travels to Hold House, a Georgia plantation originally owned by Cherokee chief James Hold, to uncover the mystery of what happened to a tribal member who stayed behind after Indian removal, when Native Americans were forcibly displaced from their ancestral homelands in the nineteenth century.
-
-
Wonderful writing and Interesting History
- By Amazon Customer on 08-03-23
By: Tiya Miles
-
Toni at Random
- The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship
- By: Dana A. Williams
- Narrated by: Deanna Anthony
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An insightful exploration that unveils the lesser-known dimensions of this legendary writer and her legacy, revealing the cultural icon’s profound impact as a visionary editor who helped define an important period in American publishing and literature.
By: Dana A. Williams
-
All That She Carried
- The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
- By: Tiya Miles
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag for her with a few items, and, soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the sack in spare, haunting language. Historian Tiya Miles carefully traces these women’s faint presence in archival records, and, where archives fall short, she turns to objects, art, and the environment to write a singular history of slavery.
-
-
An Astonishing Feat of Scholarship, Imagination and Empathy
- By Cin on 06-30-21
By: Tiya Miles
-
Combee
- Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War
- By: Dr. Edda L. Fields-Black
- Narrated by: Machelle Williams
- Length: 25 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of the Combahee River Raid, one of Harriet Tubman's most extraordinary accomplishments, based on original documents and written by a descendant of one of the participants: Edda L. Fields-Black shows how Tubman commanded a ring of spies, scouts, and pilots and participated in military expeditions behind Confederate lines. On June 2, 1863, Tubman and her crew piloted two regiments of Black US Army soldiers, the Second South Carolina Volunteers, and their white commanders up coastal South Carolina's Combahee River in three gunboats.
-
-
Bringing the forgotten to life
- By GAT on 07-16-24
-
We're Alone
- Essays
- By: Edwidge Danticat
- Narrated by: Edwidge Danticat
- Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tracing a loose arc from Edwidge Danticat’s childhood to the COVID-19 pandemic and recent events in Haiti, the essays gathered in We’re Alone include personal narrative, reportage, and tributes to mentors and heroes such as Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Gabriel García Márquez, and James Baldwin that explore several abiding themes: environmental catastrophe, the traumas of colonialism, motherhood, and the complexities of resilience.
-
-
Always a story to tell
- By TAE on 10-09-24
By: Edwidge Danticat
-
Harriet Tubman
- The Road to Freedom
- By: Catherine Clinton
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Celebrated for her courageous exploits as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman has entered history as one of 19th-century America's most enduring and important figures. But just who was this remarkable woman?
-
-
Returning this book
- By KMS on 07-11-18
-
By the Fire We Carry
- The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land
- By: Rebecca Nagle
- Narrated by: Rebecca Nagle
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A powerful work of reportage and American history that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation’s earliest days, and a small-town murder in the 1990s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land more than a century later.
-
-
So great to see the full story after This Land pod
- By S. Armor on 04-12-25
By: Rebecca Nagle
-
Seven Social Movements That Changed America
- By: Linda Gordon
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 17 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How do social movements arise, wield power, and decline? Renowned scholar Linda Gordon investigates these questions in a groundbreaking work, narrating the stories of many of America's most influential twentieth-century social movements. Beginning with the turn-of-the-century settlement house movement, Gordon then scrutinizes the 1920s Ku Klux Klan and its successors, the violent American fascist groups of the 1930s.
By: Linda Gordon
-
Black in Blues
- How a Color Tells the Story of My People
- By: Imani Perry
- Narrated by: Imani Perry
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Throughout history, the concept of Blackness has been remarkably intertwined with another color: blue. In daily life, it is evoked in countless ways. Blue skies and blue water offer hope for that which lies beyond the current conditions. But blue is also the color of deep melancholy and heartache, echoing Louis Armstrong’s question, “What did I do to be so Black and blue?” In this book, celebrated author Imani Perry uses the world’s favorite color as a springboard for a riveting emotional, cultural, and spiritual journey.
-
-
So many lessons in this book
- By Christina the Teacher on 02-04-25
By: Imani Perry
-
The Achilles Trap
- Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq
- By: Steve Coll
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 17 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, its message was clear: Iraq, under the control of strongman Saddam Hussein, possessed weapons of mass destruction that, if left unchecked, posed grave danger to the world. But when no WMDs were found, the United States and its allies were forced to examine the political and intelligence failures that had led to the invasion and the occupation, and the civil war that followed. One integral question has remained unsolved.
-
-
From the Saddam’s Point of View.
- By philip on 03-08-24
By: Steve Coll
-
Medicine River
- A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools
- By: Mary Annette Pember
- Narrated by: Erin Tripp
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sweeping and deeply personal account of Native American boarding schools in the United States, and the legacy of abuse wrought by them in an attempt to destroy Native culture and life.
-
-
Medicine River really brought a lot of feelings to the surface from my own experience with my family.🪶💔🥀
- By Nokomii on 05-16-25
-
Embers of the Hands
- Hidden Histories of the Viking Age
- By: Eleanor Barraclough
- Narrated by: Eleanor Barraclough
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In imagining a Viking, a certain image springs to mind: a barbaric warrior, leaping ashore from a longboat, and ready to terrorize the hapless local population of a northern European town. Yet while such characters define our imagination of the Viking Age today, they were in the minority. Instead, in the time-stopping soils, water, and ice of the North, Eleanor Barraclough excavates a preserved lost world, one that reimagines a misunderstood society.
-
-
Author is an excellent reader!
- By K on 02-11-25
It was original.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.