5th Annual Quock Walker Day celebrations in Lexington on Saturday, July 5, 2025
July 5 @ 8:00 am - 2:30 pm
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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.
Start the day with the 5th Annual Quock Walker Day Hike for Freedom at 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.
Afterwards, 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.
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.
AND THERE’S MORE ON TUESDAY, JULY 8!
Join the Association of Black Citizens of Lexington (ABCL) and Cary Library for a virtual screening of the Venus Roe episode of the Black Patriots of Lexington YouTube series, a co-production of ABCL, LexMedia, and Tricons 2 Red Tails. The Black Patriots of Lexington is a nine-part series where Sean D. Osborne has conversations with acclaimed historians, reenactors and educators to provide insights into 11 Black patriots who played significant roles in the American Revolution. Five of those patriots were active combatants on April 19, 1775. Three of those soldiers were Lexington residents and two were Afro-Indigenous soldiers from Natick who fired on retreating British Regulars near the Lexington Green.
In the Venus Roe episode, public historian Margaret Micholet and curator Stacey Fraser present the unique viewpoint of Venus Roe who was an enslaved servant at the home of Smitheren Reed and Captain James Reed of Woburn District (now Burlington). On April 19, 1775 the Reed home sheltered John Hancock and Samuel Adams and served as a temporary prison for up to twelve British Regulars.
