Old Lyme Witness Stones Installation

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Written By John Mills

John Mills - President, Alex Breanne Corporation

I was honored to speak at the Old Lyme Witness Stone installation on June 2nd, 2023. The installation was held at the Old Lyme Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library, 2 Library Lane, Old Lyme CT.

This installation was for 8 formerly enslaved individuals in Old Lyme, CT, including Prince Griswold Crosley who was enslaved by Connecticut Governor Matthew Griswold.

The town has now placed 38 stones around town. They plan to complete this project with 2 additional stones.

I would like to thank Joshua Torrance, Executive Director at the Florence Griswold Museum, for introducing me to the amazing historians in Old Lyme. I would also like to thank Carolyn Wakeman, Chairwoman of the Witness Stones Old Lyme Steering Committee, for inviting me to speak, and for her tireless, well executed and thoughtful work.

I feel blessed to have partners sharing in a collective mission towards addressing the reverberating effects of a past time.

John Mills

Originally from San Diego, John Mills is a technologist by trade, but an equity advocate and independent scholar by passion. The descendant of both southern and northern enslaved, John focuses on unearthing little known people and stories of this country’s history in slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. John presents research through the lens and perspective of a descendant, with intent to inspire understanding and empathy, a means to inspire good, God fearing people, now armed with information, to look into whether they may be unwittingly aligning to biases resulting from the reverberating effects of a past time. John is a member of the Connecticut Freedom Trail and a member of the Webb Deane Stevens Museum Council. John is also working with an international team funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in an effort to deliver transformational impact on digital methods in cultural institutions...a means to decolonize museums. Finally, John is working with the state of Connecticut, business leaders and scholars in Middletown, CT to honor and memorialize a former enslaved individual by the name of Prince Mortimer.

https://alexbreanne.org
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