Quock Walker Day Community Celebration: Quock Walker and the Black Patriots

Details

Celebrate Quock Walker Day aka Massachusetts Emancipation Day with ABCL!

Join us for the fifth annual Quock Walker Day celebrations in Lexington on Saturday, July 5, 2025.

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.

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.

Come early for colonial history and music and stay for the concert by Rhythms of Ghana.

This event is free.

BONUS - Quock Walker Day Storytelling at Lexington Visitors Center - 9:45 am to 2:15 pm

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.

Background

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.

The Quock Walker trials span from 1781 to 1783. In 1781 Quock Walker, a young man from Barre, MA and of Akan and/or Ewe lineage, filed a civil suit against Nathaniel Jennison for assault and battery. Mr. Walker was found by the jury to be free and was awarded 50 pounds. Following appeals and a criminal case, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found Jennison guilty of assault and agreed that the ideas of slavery and perpetual servitude were incompatible with the state constitution.

Mr. Walker’s fight through the legal system to safeguard his natural freedom resulted in the end of slavery in Massachusetts.

Event Host

ABCL - Association of Black Citizens of Lexington