The Book on Prudence Crandall

Donald E. Williams, Jr., the author of the recently published book Prudence Crandall’s Legacy: The Fight For Equality in the 1830s, Dred Scott, and Brown v. Board of Education, will be the featured speaker at a program sponsored by the Middlesex County Historical Society at 7:00 pm on Thursday, November 13, at Congregation Adath Israel.  Williams will be joined by Kazimiera Kozlowski, the curator of the Prudence Crandall Museum in Canterbury, Connecticut, who will offer remarks about the museum.

Prudence Crandall, Connecticut’s Official State Heroine, was a schoolteacher who fought in the early nineteenth century to integrate her school in Canterbury and educate black women.  Her acceptance of black girls into the school unleashed a storm of controversy that catapulted her to national notoriety and drew the attention of the most prominent pro- and antislavery activists of the day.  Crandall was arrested and jailed, and Williams’ account details her legal legacy.  Crandall v. State was the first full-throated defense mounted for civil rights in United States history.  The arguments by attorneys in Crandall played a role in two of the most fateful Supreme Court decisions, Dred Scott v. Sandford, and the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education.

Williams served as the President of the Connecticut State Senate from 2004 through 2014, and represented the 29th Senate District of Connecticut from 1993 through 2014. In addition to his career in public service, he has served as an attorney, educator, and journalist. He graduated from Syracuse University and earned his law degree from Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Virginia. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and inscription.

Congregation Adath Israel, located at the corner of Broad and Old Church Streets, is handicap accessible plus there is parking in the rear of the building.  The program is free and open to the public, although donations are welcome.  For further information, contact the Historical Society at 860-346-0746.

Author & Professor Victor Triay in The Hubbard Room 2/18

Story of Cuban Underground Freedom Fighters to be Topic of Historical Society Program

Havana, Cuba, 1960. The euphoria following the nation’s successful revolution the previous year has waned among large sectors of the population.  Cuba’s new leader, Fidel Castro, after having promised to restore democracy to the troubled island, is moving the country toward a Communist dictatorship.  In response, democratic forces launch an anti-government insurgency to save Cuba from totalitarian darkness.  This struggle forms the basis of the trilogy of historical fiction that is The Unbroken Circle series.  The story centers on the middle class Leon family who is caught up in a world of warfare, betrayal, and separation during the early years of the Cuban Revolution.

In Book I, The Struggle Begins, Goyo Leon, a devoted teacher and family man, is recruited into the anti-Castro underground after his father is killed at the hands of Castro’s henchmen.  He and other family members subsequently become more deeply involved in the pro-democracy struggle every day.  Told with heart-pounding suspense of a Cold War saga and the poignancy of a family drama, The Struggle Begins sets the stage for Book II, Freedom Betrayed, the story of the Goyo’s and other family members’ participation in the Bay of Pigs invasion.  After the invasion, the two youngest members of the Leon family are separated from the family after being sent away on an airlift of Cuban refugee children.

In a program sponsored by the Middlesex County Historical Society, Victor Triay, the author of these spellbinding books, will speak about how he came to write the series, about the characters, and about the history behind the fiction at a program to be held on Tuesday, February 18 at 7:00 pm in the Hubbard Room at Russell Library.  He will also recount his experiences researching the many events depicted in the books.  

Triay, the son of Cuban exiles, was raised in Miami, a center of the Cuban exile community.  He received his PhD. in History from Florida State University in 1995 and has been a professor in history at Middlesex Community College since 1992.  His first book, Fleeing Castro: Operation Pedro Pan and the Cuban Children’s Program, was followed by Bay of Pigs: An Oral History of Brigade 2506, which received the 2001 Samuel Proctor Oral History Prize of the Florida Historical Association.  Copies of Books I and II in the Unbroken Circle series will be available for purchase and inscription.  Russell Library, located at 123 Broad Street, Middletown, is handicap accessible.  This program is free and open to the public.  For further information, contact the Historical Society at 860-346-0746.