February 16th: Protecting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Legacy in Connecticut
Cathy Labadia, Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer & Staff Archaeologist, State Historic Preservation Office
Todd Levine, Environmental Review/CT Freedom Trail and W3R Coordinator, State Historic Preservation Office
Deborah Gaston, Secretary, Historic Preservation & CT Freedom Trail, State Historic Preservation Office
Join us on Wednesday February 16th at noon to hear about the longtime effort to preserve a Site associated with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Simsbury. Cathy Labadia, Todd Levine, and Deborah Gaston from the State Historic Preservation Office will talk about the history, preservation efforts underway, and plans for the site.
For decades, Dr. King’s time in Simsbury was part of town lore. In the late 1990s letters were unearthed proving that Dr. King’s experiences working on a Simsbury tobacco farm helped shape his identity as a future leader in the American Civil Rights Movement. The Connecticut Historical Commission commissioned a study in 2003 to identify sites associated with Dr. King’s based on those letters sent home as a Morehouse College student in the 1940s. In 2010 a group of Simsbury High School students created a powerful documentary on Dr. King in Connecticut further Building on this earlier research. When plans for a housing development threatened some of the remaining resources related to Dr. King’s time in Simsbury, State Historic Preservation Officer, Cathy Labadia and the Town of Simsbury lead a public and private campaign to successfully pause development plans and save the remaining tobacco sheds on the site.
Register here for the Zoom link to be sent to you.