Quock Walker Day Community Celebration
July 11, 2026 @ 11:00 am
Join ABCL for the 6th Annual Quock Walker Day aka Massachusetts Emancipation Day: Quock Walker & Freedom Further Extended
Celebrate Quock Walker Day aka Massachusetts Emancipation Day in Lexington on Saturday, July 11, 2026.
Celebrate the 243rd Anniversary of Massachusetts Emancipation Day and hear how the call to Further Extend the Liberties espoused in the Declaration of Independence Revolutionary War set the stage for Quock Walker’s judicial victories in his 1781 civil lawsuit for battery against his former ensaver led to the 1783 criminal case that ended slavery in Massachusetts.
Join us for the 6th 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, recitation of the Governor’s Quock Walker Day proclamation, a keynote address by Kimberly S. Budd, the 38th Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
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 Liberty Further Extended: Or Free Thoughts on the Illegality of Slave-Keeping. This essay by Rev Lemuel Haynes, a former Minuteman and Revolutionary War veteran, critiques the limits of the Declaration of Indepence and dismantles the moral and legal justifications for slavery. These arguments are reflected in Article 1 of the Massachusetts Constitution which was adopted 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 6th 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, Fresh Food Generation, First Parish of Lexington, Follen Church, Hancock UCC, LexFarm, Lexington Visitors Center, Rhythms of Ghana, Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, 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.
