Second-annual Prudence Crandall commemoration draws firey remarks from Senate President/historian Don Williams

Senate President Pro Tempore Donald E. Williams, Jr., D-Brooklyn, just made an off-the-cuff speech on how Connecticut’s rulings against blacks in the case that closed Prudence Crandall’s school for young black women in 1834 set the scene for the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision and, ultimately, the Civil War.  In 1886 the Legislature voted to give her an annual pension of $400. The General Assembly voted in 1995 to name her the state heroine.

Williams, with six years of research on Crandall, has written a book about her that will be published by Wesleyan in June. Ultimately, in the Brown v. Topeka, Kansas, Board of Education, the Supreme Court accepted the 1834 argument made by Crandall’s lawyer. “It took us that long, but it was because of her work and her legacy,” Williams said. “She had a part and played a role in that part of history that has changed all our lives. It’s a legacy that moved equality and justice in the United States forward; lessons we can learn today.”