Harmony Day Support

02/19/2026

02/18/2026

We had a great time at our event Love in Harmony! We want to thank Ashwood Manor Designs for sponsoring this event ❤️

02/17/2026

In honor of , Harmony Day Support will be honoring disabled Black Americans. Today's post is about Harriet Tubman.

Harriet Tubman was born Araminta “Minty” Ross to enslaved parents Harriet Green and Ben Ross in Maryland between 1820 and 1822. As a child, Tubman contracted measles but was still required to check muskrat traps in nearby marshes. As she grew older, Tubman was assigned more field and forest work such as driving oxen, plowing, and hauling logs.

Tubman suffered a severe head injury around the age of 12 when an overseer or possibly her master threw a two-pound metal weight at her when she intervened to keep another enslaved person from being beaten for attempting to flee. Left bleeding and unconscious, she was returned to her master’s house where she remained without medical care for two days. After this incident, Tubman frequently experienced extremely painful headaches, seizures, and would seemingly fall unconscious. These conditions remained with her for the rest of her life. Historians suggest that Tubman may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy and narcolepsy as a result of the injury.

Around 1844, Tubman married a free Black man named John Tubman. Although little is known about him or their time together, the marriage was complicated because of her slave status as the mother’s status dictated that of the children, which made any children born to Harriet and John enslaved. Tubman changed her name from Araminta to Harriet soon after her marriage.
While Tubman did not create the Underground Railroad as it had been established in the late eighteenth century, she possibly benefitted from the network of escape routes and safe houses in 1849 when she and two of her brothers escaped north. Her husband refused to join her and by 1851, it is documented that he had married another woman. Tubman would return to the South several times and help dozens escape. Her success led slaveowners to post a $40,000 rewards for her capture or death.

Harriet Tubman was never caught and never lost a passenger on the Underground Railroad. Tubman was known as the “Moses of her people” and also served as a scout, spy, guerrilla solider, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War. She is considered the first African American woman to serve in the military. Tubman also participated in other antislavery efforts which included supporting John Brown in his 1859 raid on the Harpers Ferry, Virginia arsenal.

After the Civil War, Tubman resided in Auburn New York, raised funds to aid freedmen, joined the quest for women’s suffrage, and cared for her aging parents. She would later marry a Union solider named Nelson Davis who was also born into slavery. In 1896, Tubman established the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged on land near her house. Tubman passed away in 1913 and was buried with military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York.

02/16/2026

Before Valentine's Day, Ms. Reva gave some of our guys a cooking lesson!

02/12/2026

In honor of , Harmony Day Support will be honoring disabled Black Americans. Today's post is about Matt Maxey!

Matt Maxey is the founder of DEAFinitely Dope, an organization that hires American Sign Language interpreters for concerts. Ever since it’s founding in 2014, Maxey has wanted to unite the hearing and deaf communities through music and sign language. However, early on, his struggle to fit in with both the hearing and deaf communities made him question his place in society.

Matt Maxey originally grew up in Atlanta before relocating to Houston. He uses hearing aids and was always surrounded by friends and family who would help him when needed. When he was young, his mother and grandmother discovered that he couldn’t hear when they would turn on the vacuum behind his back and he never reacted. They’d began yelling and he wouldn’t even flinch. Maxey’s mother and doctor decided on hearing aids and speech therapy so he could get use to communicating with the hearing world. Maxey says his level of hearing loss is like “trying to hear underwater. Without hearing aids, I can hear about 25% of what’s going on. With hearing aids, I can hear maybe 75%.”

Maxey stated in an interview in 2017, “I always felt like I was too deaf for the hearing world, yet too hearing for the deaf world.” Maxey said. “I think my situation is especially different with growing up in a hearing world, yet always working 10 times harder to hear with hearing aids and trying to lip-read what everyone is saying, knowing I can’t hear everything yet pretending that I could.”

After enrolling at Gallaudet University, a private institution for the deaf and hard of hearing in Washington, D.C., then Florida State College at Jacksonville, Maxey’s journey to fit in became arduous. Maxey had no formal ASL training until taking classes at Gallaudet and he struggled to find his footing among his deaf peers. He distracted himself by beginning a YouTube channel where he uploaded videos signing rap lyrics. Immediately, Maxey noticed the skyrocketing number of views his videos began receiving.

From there, Maxey began sharing his videos on other social media platforms. He even got involved in an Instagram freestyle competition created by Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard to allow users to share their raps. Maxey’s first entry was completely in sign language with written lyrics posted in the description. “I’ve been taking speech therapy for 18 years, people made fun of me for my speech my whole life and I’m extremely self-conscious of how I talked, which was why I found so much comfort in taking on the voice of an artist through sign language.” Maxey said. “The positive feedback was overwhelming from the community with the majority of the people commenting that they’ve never seen a deaf person rap before.”

With his viral videos and accounts growing and amassing followers, Maxey was prompted to want to do more for the deaf and hard of hearing communities. So, in 2014, DEAFinitely Dope was born. Maxey gravitated toward interpreting hip-hop and R&B because of its rhythmic beats and the often powerful stories in the lyrics. “Hip-hop has long been a favorite for the deaf community because of the beats and bass. So, for Chance the Rapper bringing on DEAFinitely Dope and being the first rapper to have his own personal interpreters just makes me extremely happy because I personally feel like our mission has been to break barriers in the community, in society, in perspectives and stereotypes.”

“The deaf community has dealt with so much ignorance and all they’ve ever wanted was inclusion and to be accepted and treated equally while being able to enjoy life on an equal level as their hearing peers.” Maxey said.

At the 2025 Superbowl Halftime show, Maxey was the ASL interpreter for Kendrick Lamar!

02/11/2026

We're so excited to get back outside again!

02/10/2026

In honor of , Harmony Day Support will be honoring disabled Black Americans. Today's post is about Haben Girma.

Haben Girma was born in Oakland, California in 1988 to her father Girma Kidana Adgoy and her mother Saba Gebreyesus. Her mother fled Eritrea in 1983 during the Eritrean War of Independence and met her father, also an Eritrea refugee, in California. Girma lost her vision and hearing as a result of an unknown progressive condition beginning in early childhood. She only retains 1% of her sight. Growing up in the United States, Girma was able to benefit from Civil Right Laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act. She had access to technology, such as a digital Braille device, something her elder brother who is also deaf/blind did not have access to in Eritrea.

In her 2019 book, Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law, Girma states that she heard stories from her parents about the Eritrean War of Independence and how “it’s okay to face the unknown, you’ll pioneer your way. So those lessons have helped me as a deafblind woman learn to advocate so that I have a place at the table.”

Girma attended a mainstream school and didn’t realize until she was around eight years old that there was anything different about her. Girma said her first impulse was to shrink down, try to hide, and act like everyone else. But over time, she met role models with disabilities who inspired her to push for more. Girma attended Lewis & Clark College, where she successfully advocated for her legal rights to accommodations in the school cafeteria. While she was provided with Braille course materials and other accessibility accommodations, the cafeteria only had a print menu on the wall. She asked the dining manager about posting the menu online or in Braille but the manager declined stating “that he had over 1,000 students to serve and couldn’t just make changes for her. “

Haben put up with the situation for several months until friends reminded her of her parents’ lesson: it was her choice to accept the unfairness or advocate. So, Haben started to research and showed the dining manager that the school was subject to the Americans with Disabilities Act regulations and warned him that she would take legal action. The dining manager apologized and promised to make the menus accessible, which helped not only Girma but other blind students who started attending the college the following year.

Girma stated “that taught me that when I advocate, it’s just not about me. It helps all the people who come after me. It benefits our entire community. That experience inspired me to become an attorney for people with disabilities.”

Haben graduated from Lewis & Clark College Magna Cum Laude in 2010. She then became the first deafblind student to attend and graduate from Harvard Law School, earning her Juris Doctor in 2013. Girma says she became a lawyer in part to help increase access to books and other digital information for people with disabilities. In 2013, Girma joined Disability Rights Advocates in Berkeley, California as a Skadden Fellow. She worked there from 2015 to 2016 as a staff attorney, working on behalf of people with disabilities.

In 2014, Girma gave a talk at TEDXBaltimore. She later confronted TED for not readily providing captions for all their recorded TED Talks, including her own.

In January 2015, Girma was appointed to the national board of trustees for the Helen Keller Services for the Blind.

In July 2015, Girma met with US President Barack Obama at the White House to highlight the importance of accessible technology. She provided remarks on the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In April 2016, Girma left the DRA to take up non-litigation advocacy full-time.

In June 2016, Girma gave a talk on accessible design at the Worldwide Developers Conference.

In 2018, The Washington Post published an op-ed by Girma directed at the Texas State Board of Education, which had voted to remove Helen Keller from the social studies curriculum. The board ultimately reversed its decision.

02/06/2026

We always have a great time at Amazement Square!

02/05/2026

In honor of , Harmony Day Support will be honoring disabled Black Americans. Today's post is about Thomas "Blind Tom" Wiggins.

Thomas Greene Wiggins was born May 25, 1849 to Mungo and Charity Wiggins, slaves on a Georgia Plantation. He was born blind and many historians also believe that he was on the Autism Spectrum. In 1850 Tom, his parents, and two brothers were sold to James Bethune, a lawyer in Columbus Georgia. Tom now had access to a piano and his talent for perceiving, remembering, and reproducing sounds was immediately apparent. He could pick out tunes on the piano by the age of four and made his concert debut at the age of eight, performing in Atlanta.

In 1858, Tom was hired out as a slave-musician at the price of $15,000. In 1859, at the age of 10, he became the first African American performer to play at the White House. Tom’s piano pieces “Oliver Galop” and “Virginia Polka” were published in 1860. During the Civil War, Tom went back with his owner, raising funds for Confederate relief. By 1856, 16 year old Tom Wiggins was now “indentured” to James Bethune and was playing the works of Bach, Chopin, Liszt, and Beethoven. Eventually, Tom toured in Europe where testimonials from music critics were printed in a booklet titled “The Marvelous Musical Prodigy, Blind Tom.”

With the booklet and other endorsements, “Blind Tom” Wiggins became an internationally recognized performer. Tom would have numerous original compositions published and a lengthy performing career. During the 19th century, Tom was one of the best known American performing pianists and one of the best known African American musicians. “Blind Tom” Wiggins gave his last performance in 1905 and died three years later on June 13th, 1908 at the age of fifty-nine. His extraordinary music has inspired music lovers, worldwide, including Elton John, who composed a song in his honor titled “The Ballad of Blind Tom.”

Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins has received most of his recognition posthumous:

Between 1970 and 2000, Dr. Geneva Handy Southhall wrote a three-volume thesis titled Blind Tom: The Black Pianist Composer, Continuously Enslaved. It was published in 2002.

In 2006, Reagan Grimsely published an article about preserving the sheet music of Blind Tom for future generations.

The people of Columbus, Georgia raised a commemorative headstone for Tom in 1976.

In 1999, John Davis recorded an album of Tom’s original compositions on a CD entitled John Davis Plays Blind Tom.

Tyehimba Jess wrote a sequence of poems in his 2017 Pulitzer Prize winning book Oilo where Blind Tom is the subject.

02/03/2026

02/02/2026

✨🪅👑 TWO WEEKS until Night to Shine 2026! 👑 🪅 ✨

ntslynchburg.com

02/02/2026

Harmony will be opening normal hours tomorrow, Tuesday February 3rd! We will be doing our routes, but some might affected by lingering ice and snow. Please contact our Director, Andy Coleman, at 434-841-3357 to see if the route your individual is on is one that has been affected.