Join us for ABCL’s 1st Annual Quock Walker Day Storytelling at Lexington Visitors Center, 1875 Massachusetts Ave, Lexington, MA 02420.
Saturday, July 5, 2025 from 9:45 am to 2:15 pm
Storytelling, perhaps the best-known oral tradition of African American culture, exemplifies the desire to express oneself and convey a sense of heritage. Storytellers remain important people in the community; they transform listeners by sharing new perspectives and forgotten customs of the world in which we live.
During Quock Walker Day at Lexington Visitors Center featured storytellers will celebrate the 242nd Anniversary of Massachusetts Emancipation Day and the 250th Anniversary of the Battle of Lexington. They will communicate memories of colonial Massachusetts, along with tales of resilience, ingenuity, emancipation and patriotism from the 18th and 19th centuries.
242nd Anniversary of Massachusetts Emancipation Day
Celebrate the 242nd Anniversary of Massachusetts Emancipation Day and hear how the Revolutionary War and the Black Patriots of Lexington and Massachusetts set the stage for Quock Walker’s judicial victories. His 1781 civil lawsuit for battery led to the 1783 criminal case that ended slavery in Massachusetts.
8:30 AM to 10:00 AM – 5th Annual Quock Walker Day Hike for Freedom
Start the day with the 5th Annual Quock Walker Day Hike for Freedomat Bowman Elementary School, 9 Philip Rd, Lexington, MA 02421. This family-friendly hike on the ACROSS Lexington Route M Loop commemorates Quock Walker’s journey from enslavement to employment in April 1781. Registration and storytelling at 8 am; walk starts at 8:30 am. Click here to preregister.
After the hike, join us for the 5th Annual Quock Walker Day Community Celebration at the Lexington Visitors Center Lawn, 1875 Massachusetts Avenue, Lexington, MA 02420 – FREE. The festivities start at 11 am with music and recitation of the Governor’s Quock Walker Day proclamation.
FIND YOUR JOY at any age with storytellers, Farm to Plate Caribbean American Food Truck, a dance workshop, Black heritage scavenger hunts, hands-on flax processing demonstration, military reenactors, and musical performance by Rhythms of Ghana. Festivities close with a poetry recital at 2 pm.
Honor the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington which kickstarted the Revolutionary War and paved the way for Massachusetts to adopt a state constitution in 1780. In 1783, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court confirmed that the idea of slavery is inconsistent with the 1780 Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Rain Location for the 5th Annual Quock Walker Day Community Celebration is First Parish of Lexington, 7 Harrington Rd, Lexington, MA 02421
Thank you to our partners and vendors: Church of Our Redeemer, Clarke’s Cakes & Cookies, Fresh Food Generation, First Parish of Lexington, Follen Church, Hancock UCC, LexFarm, Lexington Visitors Center, Rhythms of Ghana, 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment Company A, and the William Diamond Junior Fife and Drum Corps.
Rain Location: First Parish in Lexington 7 Harrington Road 11 am to 2 pm
Celebrate the 242nd Anniversary of Massachusetts Emancipation Day aka Quock Walker Day
Quock Walker was enslaved in Barre, MA. His 1781 civil lawsuit for battery led to the 1783 criminal case that ended slavery in Massachusetts.
Venus Roe was enslaved by Jonas Roe in Lexington. At about 3 years old, she was gifted to Smitheren Reed of Woburn District. Venus Roe was emancipated in the wake of the third Quock Walker case, Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Nathaniel Jennison.
VIRTUAL – Film Screening and Discussion of The Black Patriots of Lexington: Venue Roe
