Lexington celebrates first Massachusetts Emancipation Day – The Boston Globe

The state Legislature last year passed legislation declaring July 8 Massachusetts Emancipation Day, also known as Quock Walker Day. Governor Maura Healey marked the state’s first observance this year with an official proclamation.

But Lexington started its own celebration three years ago, local organizers said.

Walker “wasn’t someone in a position of power,” said Sean Osborne, cofounder of the Association of Black Citizens of Lexington, which hosted the event. “You don’t have to have a special power to change things.”

State Senator Cindy Friedman, a Democrat who filed the legislation to create Quock Walker Day, agreed.

“It’s a great moment in Massachusetts history,” Friedman said, addressing the crowd. “But it’s important to be reminded of the value of life and liberty, and how far we still need to go.”

Walker, whose family came from the Akan tribe in present-day Ghana, was born in Massachusetts to enslaved parents. The Caldwell family promised him freedom, but when they died, the Jennisons who acquired Walker refused to grant him freedom, according to Friedman.

He emancipated himself, and was brutally beaten when captured. But he wasn’t trying to be a martyr or a symbol, Obsorne said; he just wanted to “live his life,” a sentiment that Black Americans share today.

Walker turned to the courts to fight for his freedom. He filed a lawsuit in 1781, and his lawyers argued that slavery was antithetical to the Bible and the Massachusetts Constitution.

On July 8, 1783, the SJC declared Walker to be free. The decision would serve as the basis for Massachusetts’ abolition of slavery on constitutional grounds, several decades before the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States in 1864.

One historian noted that Walker’s quest for freedom is important to recall, particularly at a time when affirmative action and other civil liberties are in peril.

“In a trying time, this [celebration] gives me hope,” said Kerima Lewis, who teaches history at Emerson College.

The event also paid tribute to other figures like Prince Estabrook, who fought along with his white neighbors during the Battle of Lexington, according to the National Park Service.

His story, and those of other enslaved figures, such as Violet Locke, have largely been forgotten, organizers said.

“We need to pierce the illusion that slavery didn’t happen here in Massachusetts, and that wealth wasn’t derived from it,” said Russell Tanner, 65, one of dozens of residents who attended the event.

Slavery is often thought of as something that was only prevalent in the South, and the remembrance of Quock Walker can help debunk a myth of “historical purity,” he said.

Osborne, who has lived in town for 22 years, said he hopes the annual Walker celebration can help highlight the long history of Blacks in Lexington.

He hopes visitors “might consider Lexington to be a place where they’d consider raising their children.”

“Black people have been in Lexington since before it was even called Lexington,” said Osborne. “People here should know they are a part of that story.”

Sarah Raza can be reached at sarah.raza@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarahmraza.