On Saturday, June 21, WorldBeat Cultural Center will
host its 4th Annual Harriet Tubman Freedom Bird Walk — a
Juneteenth celebration that honors one of history's most
extraordinary naturalists, the woman who once called the
voice of an owl her compass and the arc of a river her road
map.
The event runs from 9AM to 1PM at WorldBeat Center's
Peace Garden in Balboa Park. Participants will meet outside
the garden, then move through the garden, into the canyon,
and through parts of Balboa Park, guided by naturalists from
the SoCal Bird Nerds and San Diego Bird Alliance, with
support from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Celebrate
Urban Birds Project. Participants will use the Merlin Bird ID
app to identify species along the route, with guides sharing
stories of how birds served as coded signals on the
Underground Railroad — the barred owl's call among them.
Harriet Tubman's navigation of the Underground Railroad
was not merely an act of courage.
It was an act of profound
ecological fluency. She read the landscape the way her
ancestors had taught her to: the North Star visible through
gaps in the tree canopy, plants along the waterways that
could feed or heal or conceal, soil and season read like a
living map. Knowing which plants indicated water, which
roots could treat a wound — this was survival science
passed through generations, and it was itself an act of
resistance. To know your environment is to belong to it. That
knowledge is its own form of freedom. WorldBeat Cultural
Center has long understood this. The Center's Ethnobotany
Peace Garden and seed library are built on the same
principle Tubman embodied: that plants are teachers, healers,
and allies, and that communities who know their land are
communities who can sustain themselves.
During the event, a Kumeyaay land acknowledgment will
precede the native planting of a serviceberry tree — the
same generous wild fruit at the center of Robin Wall
Kimmerer's book The Serviceberry, which WorldBeat has
been exploring this season. The serviceberry produces more
than it needs, drops the rest back into the soil, and feeds
what comes next. Tubman's relationship with the land
worked the same way — reciprocal, attentive, sustaining. To
plant a serviceberry on Juneteenth, on Kumeyaay land, in a
community garden, is to make that ethic visible.
That ethic extends into WorldBeat's ongoing
programming. The Center encourages community members
to know and care for their native habitat — and points to
Living Wild as a resource, which reminds us that "we must
work together to protect California's remaining plant
heritage." WorldBeat herbalist Cindy Saylor leads Seeds of
Herbalism courses, offering hands-on education in plant
medicine and ecological relationship. The Center will
continue hosting native planting events throughout the year
for those who want to deepen their connection to the land.
The celebration closes with an African Peace Drum Circle
and a Juneteenth Freedom Soul Food Plate. The 4th Annual
Harriet Tubman Freedom Bird Walk is free and open to the
public. WorldBeat Cultural Center is located in Balboa Park,
San Diego.
