Members of the Connecticut National Guard's funeral honors team fold an American Flag before presenting it to Angela Leavy, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Mary and Thaddeus Newton, during a celebration of live ceremony for the Newton family at Evergreen Cemetary in New Haven, Conn. June 21, 2024. The ceremony was the culmination of a restoration and research project by John Mills, the founder of the Alex Breanne Corporation, which also unveiled the restored grave marker of Newton’s parents, Thaddeus, a former slave, and Mary, a free woman, who worked with prominent abolitionists like Henry Ward Beecher and Henry Highland Garnet to secure the funds needed to purchase the freedom of Thaddeus and many other enslaved families in the South.