Please join us for a staged reading of 1781 in celebration of Juneteenth.

Written by local playwrights Lonnie Carter and Linda Rossi, 1781 is the story of MumBet, the first enslaved person to win her freedom in a Court of Law.   

After securing her freedom, she took the name Elizabeth Freeman and went to work for wages, as a free woman, in the household of Theodore Sedgwick, the lawyer who had represented her at Court.She raised the six Sedgwick children including Catharine, who became a best selling novelist.

At the time of MumBet’s trial,  there were more than 5000 enslaved persons in Massachusetts. In a matter of months there were none.  Eighty some years before the Emancipation Proclamation.We celebrate her freedom on this JUNETEENTH. And the freedom of all those who went after, and still are striving for that freedom today. 

Mumbet will be played by Wanda Houston. Entrance is free.