241st Anniversary of Massachusetts Emancipation Day
8:00 AM to 10:00 AM – 4th Annual Quock Walker Day Hike for Freedom
Bowman Elementary School
9 Philip Rd, Lexington, MA 02421
ACROSS Lexington Route M Loop
A Family Friendly Trail Walk of 3.3 Miles
8:00 AM – Registration & Storytelling
8:30 AM – Walk starts
Register at qwdhike4freedom2024.racewire.com
Hear the story of Quock Walker’s life and judicial victories while celebrating the 241st Anniversary of Massachusetts Emancipation Day.
This event will run from 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM.
11:00 AM to 2:00 PM – 4th Annual Quock Walker Day Community Celebration
Visitors Center Lawn
1875 Massachusetts Ave
Lexington MA 02420
Quock Walker Day celebrates the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision of July 8, 1783, that found a White enslaver guilty of assault on Quock Walker, a freedom seeking Black man, and agreed with Chief Justice Cushing that the ideas of slavery and perpetual servitude were incompatible with the state constitution.
Community Celebration Main Stage
11 AM – Opening Ceremony
12 pm -West African Dance Workshopwith Crocodile River Music
- Learn and practice steps from traditional West African dances, while dancing to live musical accompaniment provided by members of the CRM team. This high-energy experience is engaging and educational for people of all ages, backgrounds and capabilities.
1 pm – Crocodile River Music Concert
- Dance to music performed by musicians from Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea, & the US
Food and Drink
- Jamaica Mi Hungry – food truck
- Clarke’s Cakes & Cookies, LLC
Family and Freedom: Colonial Massachusetts to Civil War
- Barbadoes of Lexington: From Emancipation to Abolition – Learn about an enslaved couple who were married in Lexington and whose descendants fought for the abolition of slavery across the country.
- Yeomen Burdoos of Lexington – Hear how a 40 acre homestead supported a tax paying Black family of Cambridge Farms
- Processing Flax into Linen with Cate and Prince Chester – Flax was cultivated in the Nile Delta by the Egyptians in 5,000 BC. Learn how an emancipated couple of Lexington supplemented their income by processing flax into linen.
- Hands-On Flax Processing Demonstration with Michelle Parrish, School and Family Programs Coordinator, Historic Deerfield
- Lexington Minute Men – Meet some of the men whose valor during the Revolutionary War allowed for the Commonwealth to ratify its constitution in 1780. Members of the Barbadoes and Burdoo families were veterans of the Revolutionary War.
- Cambridge Black History Project – Hear the stories Quock Walker’s nieces and nephews who fought for civil rights, worked on the Underground Railroad and fought for the abolition of slavery across the USA.
- Salem United, Inc. – Learn how the emancipation of Cumono in 1783, led to his grandson Robert Morris becoming a member of the Massachusetts Bar in 1847.
- 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Company A – Meet some of the men whose valor during the Civil War led to the surrender of Confederate forces and the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation by the occupation of the defeated Confederate States of America. Some Burdoos and Walker Lewis descendants were veterans of the Civil War.
- Colonial Games
Celebration Partners
- 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Company A
- Cambridge Black History Project
- First Parish in Lexington
- Follen Church
- Hancock United Church of Christ
- LexFarm
- Lexington Historical Society
- Salem United, Inc.
- William Diamond Junior Fife and Drum Corps
To learn more about this year’s celebration CLICK HERE.