Join us on April 3, 2024 at Church of Our Redeemer, 6 Meriam Street, Lexington MA 02420, for a reception at 6:30 pm, followed by the program which starts at 7 pm
Come commemorate the significant role that Black men and women played in the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775.
Doors open at 6:30 for socializing with appetizers and drinks.
An episode of Black Patriots of Lexington will be screened. ABCL Historian Sean D. Osborne will moderate a panel discussion and Q&A session featuring some of the historians and other subject matter experts featured in the series.
To complement the Black Patriots of Lexington series, 11 portrait banners of the soldiers and civilians whose stories are uncovered have been created and will be unveiled during the evening’s ceremony.
There will also be an opportunity to take pictures with the portrait banners during the reception and after the screening.
BACKGROUND
ABCL’s Black Patriots of Lexington is a multi-pronged project that includes a nine-part series that explores the lives of 5 soldiers who fought in Lexington on April 19, 1775; three Black men who witnessed the battle as Lexington residents and later enlisted in the Continental Army; and two Black women and one Black man who witnessed the first day of war. Of the 8 soldiers, 3 were born into land-owning, tax-paying families and 5 were born into enslavement. All served their nascent country well and 7 of the 8 are known to have died free men.
Black Patriots fought in every major battle, and in most if not all of the lesser actions, of the American Revolution as soldiers in the Continental Army and states’ militia. On the first day of the Revolutionary War, April 19, 1775, approximately 50 Black men responded to the Lexington Alarm and engaged Crown forces during the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Historians have found the names of 35 of those Black Patriots. This series shares the stories of 5 of them.
ABCL’s Black Patriots of Lexington is supported by a Community Endowment of Lexington grant.
9 episodes
- Prince and Cate Chester
- Prince Estabrook
- Eli Burdoo
- Silas Burdoo
- Caesar and John Ferrit
- Venus Roe
- Pompey Fiske
- Adam Tidd
- Pomp Blackman
RSVP