Events
Frederick Douglass Day 2025
Saturday, September 27, 2025
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Frederick Douglass Day activities are free and open to the public.
Schedule of Events:
Parade – 10am
Street Parade (Glenwood Avenue to the Talbot County Court House, Washington Street)
Parade Announcer – Ella Taylor
Parade Participants:
Grand Marshall – Childlene Brooks
Community Marshall – Family of the late Brenda Wooden
Deon Beck- FDHS VP
EHS NJROTC color guards
FDHS banner
BAAM (boys & girls)
Bagpiper Randy Welch
TCPS Superintendent Dr Sharon M. Pepukayi
Chesapeake Multicultural Resource Center
TCFL Rep Dana Newman
White Marsh Elementary School Band
Easton Mayor Cook
Polaris Village Academy
Hispanic Dance Group
Ben Bruner, WHCP radio
Waterfowl Festival Fox, Dog & Goose Mascots
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity
Samuel T. Hemsley Elks Lodge 974
EMS Band
Easton Utilities
Easton Fire Department
Oxford Fire Department, Henry Hale
Welcome Ceremony – 10:30am
Welcome Ceremony on the front lawn of the Talbot County Court House featuring:
Gabriella Thompson – Mistress of Ceremonies
Invocation by Minister Javion Jones – Union Baptist Church
Presentation of Colors – Easton High School NJROTC
Pledge of Allegiance led by BAAM (Building African American Minds)
Music Provided by Bagpiper Randy Welch, Mid-Shore Community Band, and Dana Bowser
Frederick Douglass Recitation by Darius Johnson, a fellow at the Washington College Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience
Speakers will include: Edward (Boots) Robinson, Vice-President – Frederick Douglass Honor Society,
Michelle Johnson – Maryland Commission 250
Megan Cook – Mayor of Easton
Guiliana Thompson
Sharon Pepukayi – Ed.D., Superintendent – Talbot County Public Schools
Dana Newman – Director – Talbot County Free Library
Children’s Village – 11:30 am to 3pm
Activities include Face painting, free Frederick Douglass coloring books, games, a prize wheel, and portrait booth where kids can take photos with Frederick Douglass. Story time with Shauna Beulah at 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. and much more.
Marketplace – 11:30am to 3pm
Our Frederick Douglass Marketplace will feature local and regional food vendors, a variety of artisans and not for profit organizations.
Located at Dover and West Streets across from the Talbot County Free Library.
Entertainment Stage – 12:30 Noon to 3 pm
Location: In front of Roma Alla Pizza on West Street
Emcee Devon Beck will introduce performers including the Bay Country Chorus, Sofia Fernandez, New St. John Male Chorus,
Ruby Fisher, American Idol contestant Ayla Dennis, Asbury United Methodist Church Choir, and a Block Party and line dancing with DJ Allan Butler.
Frederick Douglass Lecture – 1 PM
The Talbot County Free Library will host, in the meeting room, a lecture by Nicholas Buccola, a professor of humanism and ethics at Claremont McKenna College in California. The lecture is entitled “Frederick Douglass, American Revolutionary” and examines how Douglass saw himself as a successor to the American revolutionaries and how he reinterpreted their ideals to confront the injustices of his era.
Buccola is a widely recognized scholar whose work on figures like Douglass, James Baldwin, and Abraham Lincoln has earned critical acclaim. Following his lecture, he will sign copies of his book “Essential Frederick Douglass”.
Inside the Library, visitors can see multimedia panels of Douglass and his family, paintings of him and his wife Anna Murray Douglass, and items owned by Douglass from his Cedar Hill home, courtesy of the National Park Services.