Prince Mortimer Honored on Rapallo Avenue!

Marker

Sep 19

Back in May, I was having a conversation with Frank Winiarski, a historian in Wethersfield, CT. Frank suggested I may want to look into the possibility of having a street named after Prince Mortimer in the town where he lived.

I thought that was an amazing idea! The thought was to see if we could change the name of Rapallo Avenue to Prince Mortimer Avenue. Rapallo Avenue sits on the approximate location of the walkway that led away from the home of Prince Mortimer's enslaver, which is where Prince lived. Prince would have walked that path every day on his way to work at the ropewalk on Main street.

I reached out to Tammy Denease, the Outreach Director of the Connecticut Freedom Trail. I also reached out to Dr. Jesse Nasta of Wesleyan University. Based on those connections, I was ultimately placed in contact with the city historian of the town of Middletown Connecticut, Debby Shapiro. From there, I was brought into a meeting with the Middletown Public Works Committee to pitch the idea.

The Public Works Committee were all onboard!!! Although, on further research after the meeting, the committee felt the impact to the residents and businesses on the street was too great, so the committee decided to instead pursue placing an honorary street name atop the Rapallo Avenue sign.

Since the city did not have an ordinance for defining the process for creating an honorary street name, work has begun in conjunction with the city attorney's office to do just that. Once complete, the formal process of giving Rapallo Avenue the honorary name of "Prince Mortimer Avenue" will begin.

Still walking! Thanks for all of your help and support!

John Mills - President

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

Prince Mortimer Honored on Rapallo Avenue!

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