Prudence Crandall (1803 - 1890)
Crandall, a pioneer educator who advocated the rights of blacks to be educated, admitted a black girl to the girls' school that she had founded in Connecticut in the 1820s. White parents, who had previously supported her, angrily withdrew their daughters. Undaunted, Crandall began another school for black girls, an act for which she was jailed in 1832. Her trial attracted the attention of abolitionists, who came to her support, but mob violence succeeded in closing her school.