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The CIA is honoring Harriet Tubman with a new statue at their Virginia headquarters. When employees of the Central Intelligence Agency enter their headquarters on the George Bush Center for Intelligence campus in suburban Virginia they’ll now be greeted by a bronze statue of Harriet Tubman holding up a lantern and armed with a pistol. The new statue was proposed by CIA officers who took a leadership class where they studied Tubman’s work as a skilled covert operative.
The CIA museum director Robert Beyer says Tubman displayed traits they hope their officers will embody. “What she did was an example of intelligence work, going behind enemy lines, using safe houses and signals intelligence to get people to freedom,” Beyer says. He also says the statue is a sign that the organization, which has historically been white and male, now values diversity in its workforce.
The statue was unveiled at a recent ceremony attended by some of Tubman’s descendants. CIA Director William Burns called the statue a reminder of Tubman’s legacy. “It will inspire us to live by her values,” Burns says. The event is one of several planned to mark the 75 years since the organization was created.
Source: NBC News