OTIS LIBRARY TO HOST PROGRAMS ON PRUDENCE CRANDALL STUDENTS

Norwich — Otis Library will host a series of programs and walks to celebrate the Harris sisters, students at Prudence Crandall’s School for African-American Women in 1833-34.

While Crandall is recognized as the state heroine, less recognized are the black students who faced enormous risk to receive an elite education. The stimulus for Crandall to establish the academy was the repeated requests of Norwich native Sarah Harris to take classes at the then all-white school. Sarah started taking classes in 1832, and when that resulted in white students withdrawing from the academy, Crandall established an all-black girls’ school in 1833, and Sarah Harris and her sister enrolled.

In April, Otis Library, 261 Main St., will celebrate the students and their teacher in several ways. Throughout the month, items on loan from the Prudence Crandall Museum will be on display in the Otis Library atrium display cases.

At 1:30 p.m. April 1, former state Sen. Donald Williams, author of “Prudence Crandall’s Legacy: The Fight for Equality in the 1830s, Dred Scott, and Brown v. Board of Education,” will present a lecture on the academy that includes the contributions and lives of the Harris sisters.

On April 8 at noon, the Emerson Theater Collaborative of New London will present a staged reading of a play about the school, commissioned by the collaborative.

Starting at 10 a.m. on both April 1 and April 8, Norwich City Historian Dale Plummer will lead an hourlong Harris sisters-themed walking tour, “Exploring Black Norwich,” through the neighborhoods where the Harris family lived and worked in downtown Norwich and Jail Hill. The walking tours will begin at the David Ruggles Freedom Courtyard at Norwich City Hall.

The April 1 tour will give extra time for people with disabilities. Sign language interpretation will be available for programs, with advance registration required. Please contact Julie Menders at (860) 889-2365, ext. 128.

All programs are free, no registration required.

The activities will be the first of annual events celebrating the sisters and the American principle of free, integrated public education. Otis Library is proposing that the city establish a Harris Sisters Day on April 1, the day the school officially opened in 1833, in celebration of the essential role played by the Norwich natives at Prudence Crandall’s academy for young black women.

For more information about the accessibility of the tour and other programs, call Elanah Sherman at (860) 614-7200, or Julie Menders at (860) 889-2365, ext. 128.