Allan Appel photo
Probate Court Judge Graves (right) with Charles Warner Jr. and Crawford's portrait.
Without him, said retired state Supreme Court Justice Flemming Norcott, Jr., there would be no Black justices on Connecticut’s highest court — or maybe even on the Supreme Court of the United States.
The New Haven legal giant referred to in that considered opinion was George W. Crawford, New Haven’s first Black probate court clerk back in 1903 and – roll the clock forward a half century – the city’s first African-American corporation counsel in 1954.
“He was an icon. He was history,” said Norcott.
Norcott and a bevy of the city and state’s Black legal talent, both currently working and retired, were on hand Friday morning at 200 Orange St., appropriately enough in the downstairs hearing room, to celebrate what would have been Crawford’s 145th birthday.
The organizer of the event, Clifton Graves, the city’s probate court judge since 2017, said celebrating Crawford has been long in coming, delayed by Covid, and also occasioned by Graves’s own upcoming retirement. Graves himself has been a barrier breaker, the city’s first Black probate court judge.
Graves, Flemming Norcott, and John Rose.
He said that he too, like so many others in the room – retired New Haven Corporation Counsel John Rose and current New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) Executive Director Alexis Highsmith Smith, among them — were all standing on Crawford’s broad historical shoulders.
To mark the occasion, Graves unveiled a portrait of Crawford – actually an enlarged photo reproduction showing the Alabama native who was Booker T. Washington’s office helper, taken on his graduation from the Yale Law School.
The image will be officially placed in the probate court’s hearing room on the third floor of 200 Orange St., said Graves.
Long-time architect Ed Cherry – the first licensed Black architect in Connecticut – was one of several speakers recollecting personal encounters with Crawford. “A tall, elegant man walking down Church Street,” Cherry remembered. “He was very well known in the African American community. He was called Lawyer Crawford.”
Retired Probate Judge Jack Keyes, whom Graves succeeded after three decades of service in the job, said that back in the 1950s his father, a lawyer, was head of Connecticut Legal Assistance and reported to Crawford.
“I called him Mr. Crawford all my life. My father worked for him and my father adored him,” Keyes remembered.
Graves emphasized the occasion had an additional purpose: To further people’s understanding of Black contributions to the law along with the importance of the probate clerk job, Crawford’s first job out of law school before he catapulted into private practice and the corporation counsel role.
“Court staff (the clerk and those who work with him or her) are truly the backbone,” said Beverly Streit-Kefalas, the administrator of the state’s probate courts. “When people come to our courts, they are truly at their most vulnerable. So recognizing Crawford as the first (Black) clerk, he was breaking barriers and helping us recognize the importance of our clerks to our system.”
There are 54 local probate districts, and six regional courts, and hundreds in clerk and other support roles. “They are the front line and have a compassionate ear and guide people through the process,” she added.
In brief remarks (he was headed to another event), Mayor Justin Elicker bemoaned how “we don’t do enough with our local history. People’s first exposure is often through building names, like Crawford Manor,” the high-rise residential tower on Park Street named for Crawford in 1966.
“But when you go deeper, you see what profound influence they have. I want to thank the Black leaders in this room for carrying the torch in the city and for fostering so much inspiration,” he said.
John Rose recalled that the National Bar Association, an organization of black attorneys, was established (in the 1920s) precisely because the American Bar Association then excluded black attorneys.
Rose, who followed in Crawford’s footsteps, becoming corporation counsel first in Hartford and then New Haven, helped found the first association of Black lawyers in Connecticut in 1976. He named it the George W. Crawford Bar Association.
“Black associations of lawyers are incredibly important today,” he said. “There’s still a lot of work to do.”
There are so many people of color who contributed to our history as a nation that we are not educated about in school. We should celebrate all of our history makers and their biographies and images should be common knowledge to students.