She subsequently returned to Maryland on multiple missions to rescue other enslaved families and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad.

She said that she chose Tubman as her subject because "Harriet is every woman who dared to defy injustice and tyranny—she is Joan of Arc, she is Susan B. Anthony, she is Anne Frank, she is Mother Teresa.

"[3] As with her previous operas Mary, Queen of Scots (1977), A Christmas Carol (1979), and An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1981), Musgrave also wrote the libretto.

She had originally planned the libretto as a straight linear narrative of Tubman's life as a slave and her subsequent rescue missions on the Underground Railroad.

Her relative immobility and the steeply raked stage set necessitated bringing in the dancer Yvonne Erwin who acted as Harriet's alter ego in some sequences.

This version is a structured and narrated series of excerpts from the original opera using the full orchestration and chorus but featuring only the characters of Harriet, Rit, and Josiah.

Remembering Harriet was premiered on 13 May 2006 by the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the Total Praise Choir of Emmanuel Baptist Church conducted by Chelsea Tipton II.

[11] The opera also has several spoken roles: Cato (a teenage slave), Sue Ellen (Preston's wife), two bounty hunters, the jail keeper, and a police sergeant.

Despite Garret's warning of the danger she now faces and the pleas of Josiah with whom she has been reunited, she vows to return for a last mission to rescue her parents and siblings.