| Canterbury Female Boarding School | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Site of Canterbury Female Boarding School, now the Prudence Crandall Museum. | |
| Location | |
 | |
1 South Canterbury Road Canterbury, Connecticut 06331 United States | |
| Coordinates | 41°41′53″N 71°58′18″W / 41.698130°N 71.971610°W |
| Information | |
| Other name | School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color |
| Type | Boarding |
| Established | October 1831 |
| Founder | Prudence Crandall |
| Closed | September 10, 1834. Closed briefly in March 1833 as it converted into a school for African-American "young ladies and little misses of color", which reopened April 1833. |
| Principal | Prudence Crandall |
| Staff | Mariah Davis |
| Faculty | Prudence Crandall, her sister Almira Crandall, Samuel May, William Burleigh[1]: 660 [2]: 62–66 |
| Gender | Female |
| Enrollment | 24 |
| Campus type | Large house on Canterbury town square |
| Supporters | William Lloyd Garrison, Rev. Simeon Jocelyn, Rev. Samuel J. May, Arthur Tappan |
| Enemies | Andrew T. Judson |
| Relevant legislation | Connecticut Black Law, passed May 24, 1833, repealed 1838, prohibiting educating African Americans not from Connecticut, who were not citizens and did not have rights. |
| Legal issue | Whether African Americans were citizens |
| Supreme Court references | Dred Scott v. Sandford, Brown v. Board of Education |
| Website | Prudence Crandall Museum, state of Connecticut |
The Canterbury Female Boarding School, in Canterbury, Connecticut, was operated by its founder, Prudence Crandall, from 1831 to 1834. When townspeople would not allow African-American girls to enroll, Crandall decided to turn it into a school for African-American girls only, the first such in the United States. The Connecticut legislature passed a law against it, and Crandall was arrested and spent a night in jail, bringing national publicity. Community violence forced Crandall to close the school.
The episode is a major incident in the history of school desegregation in the United States. The case Crandall v. State was "the first full-throated civil rights case in U.S. history.... The Crandall case [in which a key issue was whether blacks were citizens[3]: 144 ] helped influence the outcome of two of the most fateful Supreme Court decisions, Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857[[4]] and...Brown v. Board of Education in 1954."[3]: xi
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Kabriawas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
Maywas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b Williams, Jr., Donald E (2014). Prudence Crandall's legacy : the fight for equality in the 1830s, Dred Scott, and Brown v. Board of Education". Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 9780819574701. Archived from the original on 2019-10-29. Retrieved 2019-10-28 – via Project MUSE.
- ^ The Dred Scott decision. Opinion of Chief Justice Taney, with an introduction by Dr. J.H. Van Evrie. Also, an appendix, containing an essay on the natural history of the prognathous race of mankind, originally written for the New York Day-book, by Dr. S. A. Cartwright, of New Orleans. New York: Van Evrie, Horton & Co. 1863. p. 23.