George Williamson Crawford was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1877. He attended Tuskegee Institute and Talladega College and graduated from Yale Law School in 1903. He was appointed clerk of New Haven Probate Court in 1903. Crawford worked in private practice in New Haven from 1907 to 1954, when he was appointed corporation counsel for the City of New Haven, an office he held until 1962. Crawford died in 1972.

Crawford was active on the National Board of Directors of the NAACP and was a founder of the Greater New Haven branch in 1917. A close associate of W. E. B. Du Bois, Crawford was among the national Black leaders at the groundbreaking 1916 conference organized by Du Bois and the NAACP at Troutbeck, Amenia, New York. Crawford was a masonic leader and wrote a book about Prince Hall and freemasonry. His daughter, Charlotte, earned her Ph.D. in 1938 and had a distinguished career on the faculty of Howard University.

In this talk, Charles E. Warner, Jr., will discuss Crawford’s life and legacy and share some of the primary sources that give access to this essential, if not well known, figure in the history of New Haven, Yale, and the nation.

Zoom webinar registration link: https://bit.ly/3SNOybQ

Warner works with the New Haven Public Schools and has been a Beinecke Community Engagement Research Fellow the past two summers. He is chair of the Connecticut Freedom Trail and is the historian of the Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ, Crawford’s home church during his long life in New Haven. Warner has been an integral part of the research and public outreach around the histories of New Haven, Yale, and slavery.

Mondays at Beinecke online talks focus on materials from the collections and include an opening presentation at 4pm followed by conversation and Q & A beginning about 4:30pm until 5pm.