New Hiking Route In Sudbury Celebrates Juneteenth

SUDBURY, MA — The Sudbury Valley Trustees have built a new 2-1/2 mile hiking route to symbolize and celebrate the new Juneteenth holiday.

This year's Juneteenth will be the first real celebration of the new federal holiday, and one enshrined in state law in 2020. President Joe Biden created the newest holiday last year, just two days before the traditional June 19 date.

This week, the Sudbury Valley Trustees carved out a 2-1/2 mile hiking route at Memorial Forest in Sudbury. That distance represents how long it took slaves in Texas to learn that the Emancipation Proclamation had freed them.

"Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control," according to the Smithsonian Institute. "As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas."

The 2-1/2 mile loop at Memorial Forest begins at the parking lot at 225 Dutton Road, Sudbury. Find a map of the route on the Sudbury Valley Trustees website.