United States Senator Richard Blumenthal delivers remarks during the celebration of life ceremony for the Newton family at Evergreen Ceremony in New Haven, Connecticut 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 Thaddeus, a former slave, and Mary Newton, 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.