Film Screening: What Could Have Been America's First HBCU

Please join the Lillian Goldman Law Library for a screening of “What Could Have Been America's First HBCU, New Haven CT 1831” with speakers Tubyez Cropper, Michael Morand, and Fred Shapiro moderated by Femi Cadmus.

This event will take place on Wednesday, November 20th at 12:10 PM in SLB129.

**Online Registration is Required by November 15th**

Boxed lunch will be available for those who register at: https://bit.ly/4gLTngp   

The college that would have been America's first Historically Black College or University (HBCU) was proposed in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1831. However, the plans were rejected by white male landowners of New Haven, many with ties to Yale College, in a vote of 700-4.

David Daggett and Samuel Hitchcock, founders of Yale Law School, were key players in the opposition. Daggett also was a Connecticut state judge who in 1833 presided over a trial that led to the conviction of Prudence Crandall, designated by the legislature in 1995 as the state heroine, for running a school for Black girls in Canterbury in violation of the state's Black Law.

This film screening and panel discussion will explore Dagget and Hitchcock’s role in blocking the 1831 college.

For more on the Founders of Yale Law School, Dagget, Hitchcock, and Seth P. Staples, an abolitionist who represented the Amistad captives in their 1839 trial, please visit “Race, Slavery, & the Founders of Yale Law School – Fall Exhibit.”