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On Friday, February 6th, 2009 Elizabeth Alexander came to the Dalton School to share her poetry. One of her many published books are Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color. She tells the story in a poetry form, but it is not confusing to read. It tells the story of Prudence Crandall. A white teacher who refuses to take in white students. Her school is for African Americans only. In response to this action, the white townspeople poison the well, so there is no drinking water, kill the school’s cat, and then finally they broke all the windows and burned the school down. At this point Prudence Crandall couldn’t continue teaching. After that she and her husband moved as far away from that town as they could.Prudence Crandall did eventually run a school for African American girls, her original intent was to open her school to all children. However, many white parents were unhappy about this and pulled their children out of the school, and then committed many of the acts I listed above.

I thought that the best part about Miss Crandall’s work was that even though she was white, she chose to help people who didn’t have the opportunities that she had. She choose to rebel against her whole town so she could do what was right. Sadly though Prudence Crandall died in Elk Falls, Kansas, on 28th January, 1890. Even though she is dead now, her actions helped us so our schools today don’t have to be segregated like they were back then.