On Saturday, Massachusetts observed Quock Walker Day for the first time. It recognizes a 1783 Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling which determined slavery was unconstitutional in Massachusetts in a case centered on Walker’s lawsuit.

When Walker was an enslaved child growing up in Worcester County, he was promised freedom by the time he turned 25.

What You Need To Know

  • Quock Walker Day recognizes Walker's 1783 lawsuit which abolished slavery in Massachusetts

  • The Massachusetts Legislature passed a law establishing July 8 as Quock Walker Day last year

  • In Worcester, people gathered at the site where his lawsuit was first heard by the court

  • The day is also known as Massachusetts Emancipation Day

James Caldwell, the man who made the promise, died long before that day arrived. When Caldwell’s wife remarried, her new husband Nathaniel Jennison didn’t want to keep the promise, and Walker eventually ran away at age 28.

“Jennison took off after him, and Jennison beat him and brought him back to the Jennison household,” said Bob Stacy of the Worcester Historical Museum. “Walker then sued Jennison, and in a civil case, Walker was granted his freedom as well as payment for the damages he had suffered when he was beaten by Jennison.”

While Walker’s case has always been a significant part of the state’s history, the Massachusetts Legislature gave his fight and the injustices he faced more attention last year by passing a law to recognize July 8 as Quock Walker Day.

On Saturday, people gathered at the corner of Main Street and Highland Street, the former site of the Court of Common Pleas where Walker’s case was first heard, to mark the occasion.

Kathleen Moylan and Born Everlasting of the Center for Nonviolent Solutions spoke to a crowd of people about the case and the impact it had on Massachusetts.

“By the time of the 1790 census, no persons were listed as enslaved in Massachusetts,” Moylan said. “The first state to codify slavery was the first to end it.”

“All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential and unalienable rights,” Everlasting said.

The stop was part of a walking tour of Worcester’s peace history hosted by the Center for Nonviolent Solutions, with Walker’s case, in particular, being the focus on Quock Walker Day.

“I think the thread that combined everything was the idea of peaceful resolution, and every individual of course deserves their freedom and the right to peace,” said Ed Savage, who attended the tour.

Elsewhere in Massachusetts, events to honor Quock Walker Day included a proclamation reading in Lowell and a celebration at the Lexington Visitors’ Center.