A free Juneteenth program in Allentown will highlight the stories of local free Black families in Allentown and Upper Freehold.
The TAVI250 program, “Say Our Names — African American Families Emerging Out of Slavery to Freedom in Upper Freehold and Allentown, 1770s-1830s,” will be held Saturday, June 20, at 6:30 p.m. at Allentown Methodist Church, 23 Church St., Allentown.
The program will be presented by Sue Kozel, a public historian and Upper Freehold resident whose research has focused on slavery, freedom, liberty and unfreedom in New Jersey and nationally.
Kozel, an adjunct history professor at Kean University and a former assistant adjunct professor of history at Mercer County Community College, has researched the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Quaker abolitionists, including the ways Quakers sometimes compromised their values through professional, scientific, philosophical and employment relationships with Jefferson.
In 2018, Kozel presented her research on the panel “Thomas Jefferson’s Complicated Quaker Friends” at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
“My research challenges the ideas of ethics and how sometimes people of good virtues and beliefs will compromise their ethics for personal or professional gain,” Kozel said at the time.
Kozel later earned a 2020 research fellowship at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, a research center near Monticello, the former plantation of President Thomas Jefferson. She received the fellowship for her project, “Thomas Jefferson’s Complicated Friends,” which examined Jefferson’s relationship with Quakers, also known as the Society of Friends, including questions about why Jefferson employed Quakers to oversee and sell enslaved people at Poplar Forest and Monticello.
Kozel said her interest in Quaker history began more than 15 years ago in Upper Freehold, after local conversations about the Underground Railroad led her to research the African American community in Monmouth County and the abolitionist work of Quaker Richard Waln, who owned the Upper Freehold plantation known as Walnford.
Her first book, “Quakers and Their Allies in the Abolitionist Cause, 1754-1808,” co-edited with Maurice Jackson of Georgetown University, was published in 2017.
At the Allentown program, Kozel will share statistics on enslavement and highlight the names of free Black families and individuals who emerged from slavery into freedom in Allentown and Upper Freehold.
Organizers said the stories of local free Black families in Allentown and Upper Freehold are not often told but remain an important part of the community’s history. The program is being held in observance of Juneteenth, which commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union troops announced freedom for enslaved people in Galveston, Texas. Juneteenth is recognized as a state holiday in New Jersey on Friday, June 19, this year.
The Allentown program is part of TAVI250, a yearlong series of events celebrating America’s 250th birthday. The series is funded in part by Monmouth Arts, a partner of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Monmouth County Board of Commissioners, with support from First Commerce Bank and Fulton Bank.
Light refreshments will be served, and all are welcome. Those planning to attend are asked to RSVP by emailing mccormicknj@aol.com.
For more information, visit allentownvinj.org.
