Prudence Crandall

Prudence Crandall (September 3, 1803 – January 27, 1890) was an American schoolteacher and activist. She ran the Canterbury Female Boarding School in Canterbury, Connecticut, which became the first school for black girls ("young Ladies and little Misses of color") in the United States. She was the sister of Reuben Crandall, the defendant in the Trial of Reuben Crandall.

In 1832, when Crandall admitted Sarah Harris, a 20-year-old African-American woman, to her school, she created what is considered the first integrated classroom in the United States. Parents of the white children began to withdraw them. Prudence was a "very obstinate girl", according to her brother Reuben. Rather than ask the African-American student to leave, she decided that if white girls would not attend with the black students, she would educate black girls. She was arrested and spent a night in jail. Repeated trials for violating a Connecticut law, which was passed to make her work illegal, as well as violence from the townspeople, resulted in Crandall being unable to keep the school open safely. She left Connecticut and never lived there again.

Much later, the Connecticut legislature, with lobbying from Mark Twain, a resident of Hartford, passed a resolution honoring Crandall and providing her with a pension. Twain offered to buy her former Canterbury home for her retirement, but she declined. She died a few years later, in 1890.

In 1995 the Connecticut General Assembly named her the State Heroine of Connecticut.