Harris Sisters Month
April Celebrates Sarah and Mary Harris
Harris Sisters Month celebrates the groundbreaking achievements of Norwich natives Sarah and Mary Harris, who were among the first Black students at Prudence Crandall’s Canterbury school.
To honor their accomplishments, Otis Library hosts programs every April – both the month of Sarah’s birth and the formal opening of the Black Academy – that provide new insights into their lives. These programs include lectures, performances, and visual art, all aimed at keeping their legacies alive and relevant in Norwich.
All programs are free. For sign language interpretation or other disability-related accommodations, please contact Elanah Sherman at 860-614-7200 or elanahs@gmail.com at least one week before each event.
2025 Events
All programs are sponsored by The Elsie Brown Fund.
On Display in the Atrium
April 1 – 30, 2025
Printed Protest: Abolition & Anti-Slavery Materials from the Prudence Crandall Museum Collection
View print media items that students from the Canterbury Female Boarding School, including the Harris Sisters, may have read while attending the school—and afterwards. The display includes books, pamphlets, newspapers, and photos from the collection of the Prudence Crandall Museum in Canterbury, CT.
On Display in the Children’s Department
April 1 – 30, 2025
Throughout April, the Children’s Department will showcase a collaborative quilt in celebration of the rich and enduring quilting tradition of Gee’s Bend. Since the 19th century, Black women in the remote town of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, have transformed fabric and clothing scraps into stunning, intricately designed quilts. This tradition has continued through the present day, with generations of quilters carrying on the craft. These remarkable quilts are now celebrated as masterpieces, with many displayed in museums across the United States. In homage to this legacy, children at the library have crafted paper quilt squares, which will be ‘stitched’ together to form a vibrant, collaborative quilt that will be displayed for all to admire.
Otis Library Teen Journal
The 3rd volume of the Otis Library Teen Journal (OLTJ) is dedicated to the Harris Sisters and Prudence Crandall. The OLTJ is written by 6th, 7th, and 8th graders from Kelly STEAM Magnet Middle School and Teacher’s Memorial Global Studies Magnet Middle School. Students were encouraged to write about themes and subjects that they recognized in the history of Prudence Crandall’s school. Copies of the journal will be available for viewing the Teen Department beginning mid-April.
Quilt Collage Workshop Honoring the Harris Sisters (Adults)
Saturday, April 12, 11:00am, Story Time Room
Join us in creating a quilt collage using fabric, antique paper, glue sticks, words and images to honor the Harris sisters, pioneers in education and civil rights. This collaborative project, facilitated by Ed Johnetta Miller, will celebrate their legacy by weaving together art and history, inspiring future generations through creativity and community. Let us continue to celebrate the importance of diversity and empowerment in learning. Registration is required.
Sweet Treats & Stories (Family Event)
Monday, April 21, 5:00pm – 6:00pm.
The Otis Library Children’s Department and the Harris Sisters Month Committee present “Sweet Treats & Stories,” a program that combines a story time with a delicious dessert. Who can resist this combination?! Designed as a family event, the program will begin with at least one story about the importance of equality, mutual respect and cooperation. The program will end with a no-bake, dessert-making workshop led by Sweet Momma’s, a Black, woman-owned bakery in Norwich. Jean Smith, owner of Sweet Momma’s, will lead the children in creating individual, take-home servings of the bakery’s signature banana pudding, a treat with a strong African American heritage.*
Registration is required by Wednesday, April 16.
*Note: The dessert ingredients include gluten, eggs, and dairy products.
COMING IN MAY
Author Event with Dr. Jennifer Rycenga
Wednesday, May 7, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM
Otis Library will host Dr. Jennifer Rycenga, author of Schooling the Nation: The Success of the Canterbury Female Academy, in the library’s Community Room. This free event is open to the public, with copies of the book available for sale and signing afterward.
Founded in 1833 by Prudence Crandall, the Canterbury Academy educated more than two dozen Black women despite facing racism, threats, and legal battles. Dr. Rycenga’s book uncovers the inspiring story of the Academy, highlighting figures like Sarah Harris, the Academy’s first Black student, and Maria Davis, Crandall’s Black housekeeper, shedding light on a significant chapter in Black, women’s, and abolitionist history.
Dr. Jennifer Rycenga, Professor Emerita at San José State University, specializes in the Abolitionist movement, focusing on the overlooked contributions of Black women, white abolitionists, and their networks in the fight against slavery.
Surrounded: America’s First School for Black Girls, 1832
Saturday, May 10, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Live on Zoom. Free event.
Collaborative event among the Prudence Crandall Museum in Canterbury, the Otis Library in Norwich, the Public Library of New London in New London, and NBM Publishing.
Meet internationally-renowned graphic novelist Wilfrid Lupano and illustrator Stephane Fert as they join us remotely from France for a conversation about their most recent English publication. In 2021, Dargaud Publishers in France released Blanc Autour (which translates to ‘white all around’), a graphic novel that tells the story of Prudence Crandall’s Canterbury School from the perspective of the Black and Brown students. On February 11, 2025, the English edition of the novel, Surrounded: America’s First School for Black Girls, 1832 was released by NBM Publishing and is now available. Terry Nantier, founder and publisher of NBM Publishing, will also join us for the conversation.
Joanie DiMartino, Museum Curator of the Prudence Crandall Museum, will moderate the conversation with Lupano and Fert, and share her thoughts on this creative rendering of the tumultuous history of the school. You will receive the Zoom link a few days before the event. Copies of Surrounded can be borrowed from your local library; your on-site purchase of the book at the museum will support the Prudence Crandall Museum.
Register here to receive the Zoom link.
Walk Norwich: The Freedom Tail (Teens & Adults)
Thursday, May 22, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
This special tour will be co-led by the Norwich Historical Society and the Norwich Branch NAACP. Please join us as we explore a largely untold piece of Norwich history in the Jail Hill Historic District. This walk is 1.5 hours, 1.5 miles, is strenuous, and has some very steep hills. It will begin at City Hall, David Ruggles Courtyard, 100 Broadway in Norwich. Free parking is available at City Hall Garage. No registration necessary.
Videos of Past Events
View recordings of previous lectures, poetry readings, and more on our YouTube page.
History
Harris Sisters Month recognizes the courage and achievements of Norwich natives Sarah and Mary Harris. The sisters were among the first Black students at Prudence Crandall’s Canterbury school; indeed, the root of this experiment in integration was Sarah’s request in 1832, which Prudence granted, to take classes at the then all-white academy.
The consequences – the dismissal by Prudence of the white students; Prudence’s establishment of an all-Black female academy in 1833; the violence and harassment that led to the closing of the school the following year; the 1833 passage of Connecticut’s ‘Black Law’ (repealed in 1838), which prohibited out-of-state Black students from attending school in Connecticut without local permission – constitute one of the most significant chapters in American abolitionist history.
Following the closing of the school, Sarah and Mary continued to lead distinguished lives marked by audacity and purpose, Sarah as an abolitionist in New London and Rhode Island, and Mary as an educator in Louisiana. To honor their accomplishments, Otis Library, every April, presents new understandings of their lives, as well as explorations of the broader themes of social liberation, youth leadership, and the role of education in promoting democracy. Through scholarship, performance, and visual art, we hope the legacies of Sarah and Mary Harris will continue to pulse with life, meaning and continued relevance here in the heart of Norwich.
All programs are free. For sign language interpretation, please submit your request at least one week prior to each event. Please contact Elanah Sherman about this or any other disability-related request at 860-614-7200 or by e-mail at elanahs@gmail.com.
Elanah Sherman, Project Organizer
Testimonial
Poem in Honor of the Sisters
"The Ashes Were Part Of The Plan"
Poem Commissioned by Otis Library
A Poem by Frederick-Douglass Knowles II for Sarah Harris, Mary Harris, & Prudence Crandall
Not even a classroom ignited
into ember could make me quit.
Ambition burning like the gallant
walls of Prudence Crandall. My
soul sang a prelude to the Blues
etched between the integrated
lines of notebook announcing
my name as the first African
-descent pupil to approach
Prudence with a spirit letter
from the Principal of Psalms,
Teach me like you teach them.
A spirit letter for my sister,
Teach her, like you teach them.
A spirit letter for diasporic
woman across the continent,
Teach us like you teach them.
Connecticut Black Laws barring
colored-out-of-state students
couldn’t unloop the cursive written
by the hand of the Lord, himself.
Not even the stout of flame
scathing the Canterbury landscape
could char such sacred parchment.
Our flame inked a simple sentence.
Study the lexicon of love. Stir the
coals of your internal incandescence
like smoldering spikes assembling
a Railroad traveling Underground
beneath Rose City where thorns
safeguard flowers blossoming
on top of the ruins of racism.
The ashes were part of the plan.
Daughters of Sankofa reach back
to retrieve your heritage; reach back
like the neck of a Heron folding back
to place the egg of ancestry on its back;
looking back to douse the souls of white
folk frightened that our purpose would
spread like wings of a Heron;
flaming like the feathers of a phoenix
rising like the renovated walls of
Prudence Crandall School
For Colored Girls Who Considered
Liberation When Freedom Wasn’t Enuf.