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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 2018)
February 21, 2018 The Skanner BLACK HISTORY EDITION Page 7 Black History Civil Rights Legend W.E.B Du Bois’ Long Road Back to Great Barrington, MA Bard College at Simon’s Rock GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the most import- ant African-American activists and intellectu- als in U.S. history, was born 150 years ago on Feb. 23, 1868 in a small Western Massachusetts town amid the rolling hills of the Berkshire Mountains. One of the few African American families in the region, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was educated and worshiped in Great Barrington. As a teenager, he wrote newspaper articles about small-town life, and later, neighbors and the congregation of his childhood church raised funds to send him to college. He owned town property, paid town tax- es, and buried his family in the local cemetery. He also wrote fondly about Great Barrington in his autobiographies and cor- respondence. Du Bois earned a bach- elor’s degree from Fisk University and in 1895, became the first African American to earn a doc- torate from Harvard Uni- versity. He co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). A proponent of Pan-Af- ricanism, Du Bois was a prolific writer and best known for his collection of essays, “The Souls of Black Folk.” He was also a vocal supporter of wom- en’s rights and a pioneer- ing urban sociologist. Despite his connec- tion to Great Barrington and a life of significant achievements, over the years the region has been divided on how to honor Du Bois’ local leg- acy. Now, 150 years after his birth, the town of Great Barrington, along with a group of passion- ate individuals and or- ganizations, have joined together to celebrate their native son with a festival focused on his core values: civil rights, racial equality, economic justice and progressive education. Based on a shared vi- sion of restoring his legacy, the Du Bois 150th Anniversary Festival Committee (co-chaired by Randy Weinstein, historian and founder of The Du Bois Center at Great Barrington, and Gwendolyn Hampton VanSant, executive di- rector of Multicultural BRIDGE) has organized events and lectures that celebrate Du Bois, edu- cate the public about his works, and create legacy projects in partnership with Berkshire County organizations, institu- tions and community members. “Du Bois was a fount of useable wisdom regard- ing hot-button issues like racial equality and justice, health care, em- ployment and universal brotherhood. He was a speaker of uncomfort- able truths and a public school laureate of pro- gressive education. This is the Du Bois who cared about our town, the Du Bois our town cares to honor,” said Weinstein. “I first discovered Du Bois’ work at 15 while ap- plying to college at Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington,” said Hampton VanSant, a Simon’s Rock alumna who interned with Wein- stein while she was a stu- dent. “Reading ‘The Souls of Black Folk’ and learn- ing about the concepts of ‘the veil’ and ‘double consciousness’—this was the first time I felt I had words for the split expe- rience I was living as a black scholar in my first college English course.” An advocate for the liberal arts, Du Bois has long been a significant voice in the Simon’s Rock curriculum and commu- nity. Early on, a selection from his autobiography “Dusk of Dawn” was in- “ lecture featuring prom- inent Du Bois scholars and awards Du Bois Du Bois was a fount of use- able wisdom regarding hot-button issues like racial equality and justice, health care, employment and uni- versal brotherhood cluded in the Writing and Thinking Anthology for first-year students and “The Souls of Black Folk” remains a seminal course requirement. The college hosts an annual Scholarships to under- represented students. “After many years of struggle in Great Bar- rington about how to honor Du Bois, I am hon- ored to carry this torch over the finish line with many others past and present, restoring a leg- acy rightfully earned,” said Hampton VanSant. As Pulitzer-Prize win- ning Du Bois biographer David Levering Lewis said in his speech “W.E.B. Du Bois’s Long Road Back to Great Barrington” at the inauguration of the W.E.B. Du Bois Educa- tional Series in 2016, “... I dare to believe that the time has finally arrived for Du Bois to be wel- comed in his hometown, warts and all, as its most prized historic exem- plar.”
