How Freedom Came to Maryland

Join Peerless Rockville, Chiquita Sorrels, the official historian of the Jerusalem-Mt. Pleasant UM Church, Katherine Rogers, Peerless Rockville Collections Manager, and Ralph Buglass, co-author of Images of America: Rockville, as we celebrate Juneteenth with a presentation on freedom.

Maryland was a state that practiced slavery but did not secede from the Union. Enslaved people here faced unique circumstances as President Lincoln sought to keep the loyalty of slave-holding Unionists while waging war against the Confederacy. The path to abolition in Maryland differed from other places and the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply here. Come to the historic 188-year-old Jerusalem-Mt. Pleasant United Methodist Church to learn about the various paths to freedom taken by enslaved Marylanders before nationwide emancipation.