Honoring Delaware's Freedom Seekers

Delaware Greenways invites you to experience our “Juneteenth Celebration Route.” Running from the Old New Castle Courthouse to Wilmington’s Tubman-Garrett Park on the Jack A. Markell Trail, this virtual experience enables you to walk, run, or bike in the company of eight important Delawareans who fought for freedom.

You can experience the Juneteenth Celebration Route in person by viewing the story map on your cell phone, or without traveling its distance, on your home computer. Invite friends to join you or take it in alone. It's a powerful story that deserves to be heard and celebrated.

The script below correlates to the videos shown within the story. If you would like, please read the script and look at the images threaded throughout the story of Delaware's Freedom Seekers.

The modern Juneteenth movement reaches deep into the past, yet it looks forward. Juneteenth brings Americans together to celebrate our shared commitment to freedom by marking the reading of General Order #3 in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865. On that day, all Texans were told in no uncertain terms that every slave would henceforth be free. 

The transference of Juneteenth traditions represents more than annual remembrances. Juneteenth is a beckoning to continued efforts, and a delivery of freedom and justice for all people. The oldest Juneteenth celebration in Delaware was begun in 1994 by Bernie Wilkins, founder of the Delaware Juneteenth Association.

This June, many other community groups will also honor this tradition by recognizing the physical and spiritual journeys of freedom-seekers who have fought to make our state more equitable and just.

After the Juneteenth proclamation was delivered in Galveston, enslaved people left Texas in considerable numbers to find family members and make their way in the post-slavery United States. They carried the Juneteenth traditions, cultures, and memories all over the world. 

Peter Spencer’s Union Church of Africans developed as part of an independent black church movement that swept the United States in the late 1700s and the 1800s. Inspired by the principle of religious freedom expressed in the U.S. Constitution and by a vision of black liberation and self-determination, in 1813 Spencer led the movement that created the first independent Black denomination in the United States. It would eventually result in the incorporation of the African Union Methodist Protestant (A.U.M.P.) and Union American Methodist Episcopal (U.A.M.E.) denominations, also known as the “Spencer Churches” or “African Union Methodism.” These churches embodied a growing desire on the part of Africans in America to be self-governing and to worship God according to the dictates of their consciences. They stood as the prime expression of resistance to African enslavement and segregation, and as participants in some of the earliest organized protests for civil rights for people of African descent in the United States. Spencer is also credited with launching the first peaceable assembly of African Americans, the Big Quarterly (affectionately known as August Quarterly), which continues to this day.

On Juneteenth, we honor Peter Spencer’s indefatigable commitment to religious freedom.

White Underground Railroad stationmasters Thomas Garrett and John Hunn were convicted in the Old New Castle Courthouse of aiding the successful 1845 escape of the Hawkins family in Maryland. Declared guilty, Garrett and Hunn were fined thousands of dollars and faced financial ruin. Proslavery judge Roger B. Taney soon to become Chief Justice of the United States, presided over the trial. He would later deliver the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857, declaring that African Americans could never be US citizens. Even after he was convicted in 1848, and left destitute, Garrett defiantly told the crowded courtroom, “if anyone knows a fugitive who wants a shelter, and a friend, send him to Thomas Garrett.”

His conviction did not stop Garrett. He persisted in assisting fugitives until the beginning of the Civil War.

On Juneteenth, we honor Thomas Garrett and John Hunn's relentless devotion to abolition.

On Saturday morning, September 22, 1849, five Maryland men in two carriages arrived at the Justison Street home of laborer Joseph Hyland and his sister, Ann Brown, a free woman. The men included two brothers who claimed ownership of Ann. They presented no warrant and attempted to drag Ann away. Joseph stopped them with a punch, but Ann and Joseph were arrested, and Ann was jailed in New Castle until the Massey brothers could present evidence of ownership.

The Wilmington resistance community sprang into action. The facts showed that Ann's mother had been manumitted decades earlier by the Massey’s deceased grandfather, though they falsely claimed she was still their property.  Twenty years earlier, they had attempted to kidnap Ann when she lived in Philadelphia, and failed.

When the case fell apart, the other men who were in the carriage that day, Mass Fountain, a Baltimore slave trader, and Thomas McCreary, the notorious kidnapper who operated in southeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland with the blessing of the Maryland government, were exposed. The case was reported in local and national newspapers which revealed that constables of the region were strongly suspected to be accomplices in the kidnappings of free people. 

On Juneteenth, we honor Ann Brown’s resolute commitment to justice.

Located due east of Wilmington on the Christina River, "The Rocks" was a clandestine place for Underground Railroad ship captains to land freedom-seekers in the second half of the 1850s.  

Free Black Underground Railroad operative Harry A. Craige, Jr., a brick-maker and mason working with white abolitionist John Hilles, lived a few blocks from The Rocks. Harry Craige received and transported the "cargo" of men like Captain James Fountain from this landing to safety. Craige and his fellow Black operatives risked physical punishment and even their freedom by carrying out such work, as his penalty for assisting in emancipation would have enslavement. Harry Craige voluntarily formed part of the front line of the vital Wilmington network, moving people and information with stealth through the city and northward.

"The Rocks" is part of the National Park Service’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. 

On Juneteenth, we honor Harry A. Craige Jr.'s unfaltering dedication to liberty.

Market Street Bridge was one of the more dangerous gateways into Wilmington for Harriet Tubman and other freedom-seekers because it was a natural watch-point for patrols on the lookout for freedom-seekers from Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. Accounts by Tubman of sheltering her party in the homes of free Black citizens in South Wilmington while watching a heavily patrolled Market Street Bridge are particularly harrowing.

In November, 1856 a dangerous rescue was arranged by Tubman and her fellow Underground Railroad operatives, including Thomas Garret.  Their plan was to send two wagons of hired "actors" over the bridge pretending to be rowdy workers headed to a picnic.  The crew later returned with Tubman and her four charges hidden in the wagons and, calm and quiet in the face of grave danger, the freedom-seekers passed the patrols unchallenged. 

Tubman-Garret Park features a dynamic sculpture depicting Harriet Tubman and Thomas Garrett, "Unwavering Courage in the Pursuit of Freedom. The park is an ideal place to rest and contemplate the importance of their partnership in the mid-19th century, as well as the history of countless others who worked relentlessly to end slavery.

On Juneteenth, we honor Harriet Tubman’s fierce devotion to freedom.

Johnson was born in Snow Hill, Md., on Dec. 26, 1899. At age 18, he began playing semiprofesional baseball for five dollars a game. He quickly moved up to the Hilldale Giants. It was there that he acquired his nickname, after a veteran player named “Judy” Gans. His mentor was Hall of Famer John Henry “Pop” Lloyd. Johnson, a intellectual ballplayer with a skill for recognizing and developing talent, would in turn serve as a mentor for Hall of Famer Josh Gibson.

In 1929, Johnson was named the Negro Leagues Most Valuable Player by the Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier, two leading African-American newspapers. He was captain of the 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords club that featured five future Hall of Famers: himself, Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston and Josh Gibson. He retired as a player in 1937, having played his entire career in the Negro Leagues. He is considered one of the best third basemen of all time.

From 1971-74, Johnson served on the Hall of Fame’s Committee on the Negro Baseball Leagues. After stepping down from the Committee, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1975.

On Juneteenth, we honor Judy Johnson’s tireless dedication to breaking racial barriers.

In 1929, Louis Redding became the first African American lawyer in Delaware. For twenty-five years, he remained the only non-white lawyer in the state, successfully challenging discrimination in housing, public accommodations, employment, and the criminal justice system.

In 1950, Louis Redding brought a case against the University of Delaware because it barred black students under the guise of the "separate but equal" doctrine. Redding won, and the University was ordered to admit Black students, becoming the first state-funded undergraduate institution to desegregate by court order.

In 1952, Redding brought two cases to desegregate public schools in Claymont and Hockessin that were later combined with cases from three other states and the District of Columbia to become part of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954. Redding successfully argued the Brown case with a team of attorneys that included Thurgood Marshall, ensuring that segregation would no longer be the law of the land in the United States. 

On Juneteenth, we honor Louis L. Redding Jr.'s unwavering pursuit of equality.

The celebration of Juneteenth is much more than the remembrance of one event that took place at a single moment in history. It is indeed a celebration of African Americans being freed from the terrible institution of slavery, but it is also a call to commitment for all people to work towards “freedom and justice for all.”

This Juneteenth commemoration is a celebration of freedom seekers, a time to rejoice in emancipation and the promise of a truly just America. It is a time to honor the effort, dedication, and sacrifice it took to pursue freedom during the time of slavery in America. Finally, it is a time to reflect and regroup to find the strength and stamina to continue the work.