The Beaver Mill building, built in the 1800s for textile manufacturing, bearing its historic plaque. Today it houses a thriving creative community. Photo courtesy Eric Rudd
Beaver Mill, part of the old Hoosac Cotton Mill (one of the earliest mills in North Adams), traces its history back to 1851, when Harvey Arnold, his brother Oliver, and friend Nathanial Blinn erected the three stone floors on the southern end of the building for textile manufacturing. As the textile industry in the Berkshires grew, the mill complex also grew. By the turn of the 20th century, Beaver Mill was humming, with four full floors and over 130,000 square feet of interior space.
Vintage postcard showing Eclipse Mill with clock tower in middle distance.
Hoosac Mill Corporation purchased the mill in 1911, but, faced with the region’s looming manufacturing decline, sold it to Sprague Electric (based in Quincy, Mass.) in 1929 for $200,000. Sprague Electric quickly outgrew the Beaver Mill, eventually taking over the nearby Eclipse Mill and converting what is now MASS MoCA into its primary campus. By World War II, Sprague employed 4,000 workers in a town of just 22,000. “In some original floor areas, indentations where workers once stood for hours at machines can still be felt—quiet testaments to nearly a century of shifting production lines,” the website notes.
Circa-1930 illustration of Sprague Electric, aka Sprague Specialties Company, when it inhabited the Beaver Mill plant.
The mill was eventually broken up and sold, as the town of North Adams entered a deep recession while the rest of the state enjoyed an economic boom. Watching the population drop to 13,000, many assumed the mill buildings would all be demolished. Instead, the Beaver Mill and Eclipse Mill were donated to a nonprofit economic development group, given electrical and heating upgrades, and repurposed for military textile manufacturing. After only a few years, corruption scandals led the owners to flee town, leaving the mills vacant again.
The final tower of the Delftree Mill portion of the old mill complex, which had been in a state of disrepair and deemed a safety hazard for a long time, was razed last year. Fortunately, the two other structures have long since been lovingly restored, thanks to sculptor Eric Rudd and his wife, Barbara—a tribute both to North Adams’ history as a booming mill town and to the creativity and innovation that characterize the Berkshire arts community. Rudd recognized the creative potential of the building and the advantages of being near other established art museums.
Exterior of Beaver Mill as it stands today. Photo courtesy Eric Rudd
Eric Rudd—a well-known sculptor/mixed media artist from Washington, D.C., who has exhibited for over 60 years in museum and private collections in the United States (including The Smithsonian), Europe, and Asia—first came to the Berkshires in 1987 through an act of fate (or divine intervention?). “GE offered me 4,000 pounds of premium pellets and use of their $100,000 polycarbonate blow-molding equipment at their Pittsfield R&D site that summer,” Rudd recalls. “While I was up here, I learned about the 130,000 square-foot mill and saw nothing but possibilities. As an artist, I was used to having crazy ideas and figuring out how to build them.” Returning in 1988, he learned of a vacant mill (Eclipse Mill) in dire need of a new owner. The nonprofit that owned the property encouraged him to take a look at the nearby Beaver Mill instead.
Contemporary sculptures inside Beaver Mill by artist and owner Eric Rudd. Photo courtesy Eric Rudd
“At the time, the Beaver Mill was in dire condition: Kids were throwing rocks through its 400 windows—comprising over 10,000 panes—sprinkler systems malfunctioned from neglect, and abandoned textile materials were stacked head-high on many floors,” Rudd recalls. “The building had just four tenants, and the town’s Main Street was a ghost town, with only 30 percent occupancy.” Needing space for his sculptural installations, he recognized the building’s creative potential.
In 1990, he and his wife renovated a portion of the mill into a massive loft apartment/studio, moved their family there, and continued to renovate the other sections. With an overabundance of space and few viable commercial tenants, they founded the Contemporary Artists Center (CAC), an artist residency program. “For a decade, the CAC hosted over 100 artists each summer, offering expansive studio spaces, exhibitions, and opportunities to engage with museum and gallery professionals,” Rudd notes. The center also featured five galleries, hosting 15 summer shows annually, as well as the “Downtown Installations” program, filling up to 37 storefronts with art.
A furnished loft and studio at Beaver Mill. Photo courtesy Eric Rudd
Today, under the Barbara and Eric Rudd Art Foundation, they maintain one of the largest individual studios in the country (including 50,000 square feet of art, a Sculpture Garden, Artifacts Gallery, White Cave, Studio Gallery, Pyramid Reliefs, and Sculpture Space), in addition to 40 other studios housing working artists. “Every nook of the vast ‘red elephant’—a nickname for mill structures—is now creatively occupied,” the website notes.
The success of the Beaver Mill inspired the couple to purchase the nearby vacant Eclipse Mill (243 Union Street) and convert it into 40 large live-work lofts between 2002 and 2006. One of the bigger problems Rudd faced in renovating the old mill was making it ADA compliant—a challenge the previous owners estimated would cost $950,000 to resolve. “The building had two parking lots, one of which had a loading dock and ramp. What was originally the back of the building is now the front,” he explains. “We solved the problem for $6,000 and gained a bigger parking lot in the process!”
The spaces are now home to a vibrant community of locally and internationally known artists—including painters and potters, jewelers and sculptors, printmakers and photographers, dancers, puppeteers, writers, and musicians. The gallery regularly hosts art shows and openings, open studios, and live performances. By spring 2026, they anticipate opening the Historic Beaver Mill Inn, which will feature 12 contemporary rooms, a shared kitchen, and a community space.
A room in the Historic Beaver Mill Inn, opening in spring 2026. Photo courtesy Eric Rudd
“All along, I’ve been dedicated to revitalizing the city’s arts and cultural life through artistic practice and community development,” Rudd says. “We were trendsetters, both in terms of drawing artists from around the country to North Adams and showing other developers there was value in these old mills.”
Editor’s note: Eclipse and Beaver are just two of several historic mills in and around Berkshire County that have been rescued and repurposed into thriving creative spaces. They house workshops, studios, restaurants, and retail outlets for artists, writers, and craftspeople. We will have more about these lively and interesting spaces in the upcoming fall/winter issue of our print magazine Out & About with The Berkshire Edge which will be in distribution throughout Berkshire County and beyond starting November 5. A digital version of the magazine will be posted on The Edge shortly thereafter.
Bob Climo At Berkshire Bagel Company. Photo by Katy Sparks
Bob Climo embodies the best qualities of a small business owner/operator. He is passionate about the products he and his team produce, and he lives his community-inspired values from both behind the bagel/deli counter and through supporting gatherings of all kinds via sponsorships and fundraising events. A spirit of generosity and of an everyday kind of celebration is palpable when you enter the brightly lit shop.
KATY SPARKS
When I first arrived in Great Barrington from New York City five years ago, all I heard was how fabulous your bagels are, so it’s great to be sitting down with you to learn some of your secrets!
BOB CLIMO
Yes, the former owners, Marvin and Judy Lieberman, came up with this great concept to bring bagels to Great Barrington, and I was very fortunate to work with them for about eight years before I bought the business 11 years ago. All together, that means we will be celebrating our 30th anniversary for the business this coming February.
SPARKS
Do you have any big plans for this impressive milestone?
CLIMO
We’re working on some ideas! We’re rebranding our logo to remind people that we offer more than just bagels. We do a great deli here with specials like avocado toast with balsamic, tomato, and feta, and we have great specialty fish coming up from the city like sturgeon, sable, and nova lox that I hand slice myself.
SPARKS
Was working with Marvin and Judy your first job in the food business?
CLIMO
No, I ‘d been in food before. I worked at Canyon Ranch as a demo chef, and I also worked at the Cleveland Clinic working with their nutritionists to help teach healthy cooking and healthy eating.
SPARKS
How does that experience at Canyon Ranch influence what you offer on your menus?
CLIMO
I’m glad you asked that. One of the things I believe is that deli food can be clean, use local ingredients, and support local farmers, so we make sure we minimize processed foods by making everything here in house to order.
SPARKS
Now let’s get to the star of the show: the bagels. It’s always been part of the lore of New York City bagels that they are so great because of the city water. What do you say to that?
CLIMO
You can definitely make great bagels up here too. We do it the old-fashioned way and follow those processes and use great ingredients.
SPARKS
So please walk us through that process.
Photo by Katy Sparks
CLIMO
We mix the dough each morning, then form them into the bagel shape and let them proof in a refrigerator overnight to develop their flavor. The following morning at 5 a.m., we turn on the kettle to boil the bagels. It’s like a big cauldron and when the bagels are ready, they float up to the surface where we scoop them out and “shock” them in cold water to stop the cooking process. After that, we place the bagels on bamboo and burlap-lined boards. The reason for the burlap is to help them cook evenly in the oven.
SPARKS
That is a cool technique, and thanks for sharing. What is your personal favorite bagel?
CLIMO
For me it’s either a sesame or salt bagel that has come right out of the oven. You don’t even need anything on it—I love the smell of the toasted sesame seeds when they are still warm.
SPARKS
What flavors sell the best, and are there any crazy flavors you come up with to spice things up?
CLIMO
For most people, their favorites are the “tornado” (everything bagel), sesame, and poppy. On the weekends, we do an asiago cheese and Jalepeno bagel, and we’re in the process of developing a French toast bagel. Playing around with adding eggs and cinnamon to the bagel dough.
SPARKS
What other innovations are you working on for future growth of the business?
CLIMO
Well, we already do a good amount of wholesale business locally to places like the Berkshire Food Co-op, area restaurants, and Canyon Ranch. I also do some business down in Litchfield County, Conn., at Provisions in the White Hart Tavern in Salisbury and at the Hotchkiss School, but I want to expand our wholesale business down in that region.
SPARKS
How did you start taking BerkShares?
CLIMO
I was on the board of BerkShares at one time, and I love the program and have always supported them. And I think the world of Susan (Witt). You can’t help but want to support her mission when you talk to her. And I want to help other community businesses thrive by keeping the capital in this area. A healthy business ecosystem helps all of us.
SPARKS
And how do you like to spend the BerkShares you take in?
CLIMO
I spend them at area restaurants and at Barrington Outfitters on Main Street. We just need every local business to take them.
SPARKS
Bob, is there anything I didn’t ask you about that you’d like the community to know?
CLIMO
We recently launched a new website, and that’s going well. We’re always updating ourselves, and we’re more than bagels. We also love to support our community with sponsorships and fundraising.
SPARKS
Important last question: What time do I need to get to the store to get one of those sesame bagels still warm from the oven?
CLIMO
Your best bet is right when we open our doors at 6:30 a.m. And we do all kinds of breakfast sandwiches with a free cup of coffee!
Financial authors, like me, try to write timely content. That is why you see so many year-end tax tips in December, when tax filing deadlines are quickly approaching. However, that is more of a trick than a treat (belated Halloween pun intended), given that those year-end articles do not give you much time to get things done. That is why I wrote this weirdly out-of-season list of year-end 2025 tax tips: so you have time to take action if there is an opportunity for you.
If you are a high earner in 2025, Congress’ mid-summer law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), did two big things for families like yours: First, it raised or extended some deductions and caps for 2025 (for instance, a bigger state and local tax deduction), and second, it changed the math for 2026 and beyond on itemizing and charitable giving (new caps and floors). What you do before December 31, 2025, can be worth more than the same move on January 1, 2026. Talk to your financial advisor about steering you through these tax-avoidance tips.
1) Start with “easy buttons,” but use 2025’s levers
Max your workplace plan now
If you have a 401(k)/403(b), you can contribute up to $23,500 for 2025, plus a $7,500 catch-up if you are 50 or older. Ages 60 to 63 get a supersized catch-up of $11,250 (plan permitting). Those are real tax-rate reducers if you are making traditional pre-tax contributions, and they are hard to replace after New Year’s.
A couple from Williamstown, both partners at professional firms, had been letting payroll deferrals drift. I hard-capped their remaining pay periods so the last checks of the year “auto-swept” to the plan. That single tweak locked in five-figure pre-tax savings and helped them stay under a Medicare IRMAA (income-related monthly adjustment amount) threshold they were about to trip.
Health Savings Account (HSA)
If you are in a high-deductible plan, HSA dollars reduce taxable income, grow tax-deferred, and are tax-free for qualified medical costs.
Roth conversions: fill, don’t spill
When investment values are down or your 2025 income is softer than usual, a partial conversion can lock in more tax-free growth without pushing you into the next bracket. But remember that conversions raise adjusted gross income, which can reduce how much of the new state-and-local-tax (SALT) deduction you keep (more on that below). You need to model the bracket line and stop.
Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs): the tax ripples you need to know
If you are 73 or older, your 2025 RMD must come out by December 31, or you face a penalty of 25 percent (potentially 10 percent if corrected within two years). First-timers can wait until April 1 of the following year, but doing so can result in two RMDs being stacked into one tax year, which can be a bad idea.
A retired West Stockbridge executive wanted to defer his first RMD to April. I explained to him how the double-RMD year would increase his Medicare premiums and reduce his new SALT deduction. He took the RMD in December and avoided both problems.
2) Make the new SALT rules work for you (but watch the phase-down)
For 2025–2029, the SALT cap is $40,000 per return; it inflates one percent in 2026–2029 and then drops back to $10,000 in 2030. There is a catch: The cap phases down when your modified AGI exceeds $500,000 (half that if you file separately), and it never drops below $10,000. Practically, if your 2025 income is between $500,000 and $600,000, you may not get the full $40,000 deduction; above $600,000, and you are back at $10,000.
How-to: Before year-end, add up what you have already paid in state income and property taxes. If you are below the cap and below the phase-down income, consider prepaying the January property tax bill or state quarterly estimate in December, but only if you will truly itemize in 2025 (see charitable strategy next).
A Great Barrington family with around $520,000 AGI was planning to prepay $15,000 of their 2026 Q1 state tax. My model indicated that their SALT cap would be phased down, meaning the prepayment would have been partly wasted. I dialed back the prepay and redirected dollars to a donor-advised fund instead, flipping them from standard deduction to itemizing and netting a bigger overall benefit.
3) Charitable giving: 2025 is special
Two OBBBA changes arrive next year that change the calculus:
Non-itemizers will get a permanent charitable write-off up to $1,000 ($2,000 if married filing jointly) for cash gifts to public charities, but only beginning in 2026.
Itemizers face a new floor of 0.5 percent of AGI for charitable deductions starting in 2026, and the law also reinstates a limitation that effectively caps the tax value of itemized deductions at 35 percent for top-bracket taxpayers. Your 2025 charitable dollars are potentially worth more in tax savings than the same dollars in 2026.
How-to: If you are planning a sizable multi-year gift, bunch several years into 2025, to get above the standard deduction and harvest the full 2025 value. Donate appreciated securities held less than one year to avoid capital gains and deduct the fair market value.
Qualified charitable deductions
If you are at least 70 years and six months old, you can give up to $108,000 (2025) directly from an IRA to charity. QCDs count toward your RMD but do nont hit AGI, which is huge for Medicare brackets and the SALT phase-down math. For couples who both qualify, it can be $216,000.
A Lenox widow planned $90,000 of cash gifts and a $50,000 DAF grant. I reframed it: $108,000 as a QCD from her IRA, plus appreciated shares into the DAF for the balance. Her AGI dropped, she cleared the SALT phase-down, and Medicare premiums stayed put.
Paperwork matters: High-value non-cash gifts require a qualified appraisal and Form 8283. To ensure timely settlement, initiate custodial transfers to the DAF early in December.
4) Harvest losses and dodge unwanted fund distributions (the tidy-up)
Use year-end to tax-loss harvests in taxable accounts to offset realized gains and up to $3,000 of ordinary income (carry any extra forward). If your mutual fund is set to distribute capital gains in November or December, consider selling before the record date and swapping to a similar exchange-traded fund (not substantially identical, to avoid wash-sale issues).
A North Adams investor held a legacy active fund set to distribute a heavy gain. I sold before the record date and rotated to a tax-efficient ETF “twin.” Their exposure barely budged, but their tax bill was reduced.
Protect your money from taxes
The complete IRS tax code and its related guidance are over 70,000 pages. (The commonly referenced Title 26 portion of the code is “only” 2,600 pages.) It is not easy to navigate. I use a handful of powerful software to navigate it, so do not feel bad if even these “easy buttons” feel complicated. A best practice is to forward this article to your financial advisor, allowing them to schedule a meeting with you to review the scenarios on their own model-building software.
Allen Harris is an owner of Berkshire Money Management in Great Barrington and Dalton, managing more than $1 billion of investments. Unless specifically identified as original research or data gathering, some or all of the data cited is attributable to third-party sources. Unless stated otherwise, any mention of specific securities or investments is for illustrative purposes only. Advisor’s clients may or may not hold the securities discussed in their portfolios. Advisor makes no representation that any of the securities discussed have been or will be profitable. Full disclosures here. Direct inquiries to Allen at AHarris@BerkshireMM.com.
Numbers don’t lie. Sometimes people do. Howard Lieberman created this image with ChatGPT.
Editor’s note: Besides tracking technological advancements and innovations, our author is a Juilliard-trained musical composer. Listen to “Tethered Dreams,” an original improvisation by Howard Lieberman, composed for this column.
Numbers don’t lie
But people do, especially to themselves, about value. It takes only seconds to tell a story, but years, sometimes decades, to build a real business. For centuries, finance was grounded in the tangible. You made something, sold it, and earned a profit. Numbers kept you honest and revealed whether your great idea was actually working. Somewhere along the way, numbers stopped being the goal and became merely the backdrop to the story. In the modern marketplace, what you say about your company often counts for more than what you earn. Storytelling became a substitute for substance. It is easier to paint a picture of a prosperous future than to prove you are already creating one.
Once upon a time, a company’s worth was measured by how much money it made—by real revenue, real products, and real customers. Then the rules began to shift. Market capitalization and valuation replaced profit as the yardsticks of success. The narrative itself became the product, and the company’s ability to sell its story determined how high it could soar. That is when the danger began. People fell in love with stories that sounded too good to be true. They forgot that stories do not pay the bills. Stories are powerful and necessary, but they become dangerous when detached from evidence. Numbers do not lie, but when they are ignored or misrepresented, everything else eventually collapses.
Emotionally engaging stories grab us like nothing else. Howard Lieberman created this image with ChatGPT.
The power of story
Humans are wired for stories. We trust them more than spreadsheets because they reach our emotions faster than facts ever can. That is why charismatic founders, politicians, and marketers can sway millions with a few well-chosen words. This dynamic is not new; it is simply amplified. The story-first mentality began in Silicon Valley, migrated to Wall Street, and now dominates Washington. In each case, the storyteller often wins more attention, funding, or votes than the quiet builder who is actually doing the work.
Artificial intelligence is the latest and loudest example. It is a great story. It is powerful, useful, and increasingly essential. I use it every day, and it truly changes what is possible. But usefulness is not the same as profitability, and technological breakthroughs are not automatically good investments. AI has been around for more than half a century, with several “AI winters” when the hype cooled and the money vanished. Each wave begins with exuberance and ends in disappointment when people realize that revolutionary tools still need sustainable business models.
Today’s AI gold rush is fueled by emotion and speculation as much as by progress. Data centers the size of cities hum day and night to answer billions of prompts. Every query consumes electricity, hardware, cooling, and bandwidth. That is not free. If users were charged what these services actually cost, demand would plummet overnight. And yet investors keep pouring in because the story is irresistible. AI will transform everything, they say. Maybe that is true. But as history shows, great stories have bankrupted more dreamers than bad ideas ever have.
It is simply easier to tell a story than to deliver a product. I know, I have built multiple companies. Some succeeded, some did not. Every time, I learned that narrative can open doors, but only results keep them open. In a world where attention is currency, the storytellers get rich first. But eventually, reality demands receipts.
Beyond the bubble
We have seen this before. The dot-com era was filled with the same energy: visionaries with grand ideas, investors desperate not to be left out, and a public hypnotized by the promise of a digital future. Many executives raised millions, sold early, and declared victory even as their investors lost everything. For them, the exit was a success. For everyone else, it was a lesson. The AI boom feels hauntingly familiar. Founders, bankers, and brokers are all making money on transactions while long-term profitability remains uncertain. This does not mean AI is not real. It is. But many of the businesses built around it may not be.
Does that make me anti-AI or anti-investment? Not at all. I am an innovator by nature, addicted to creation and experimentation. What I am not addicted to is illusion. There is a difference between risk and recklessness, between believing in potential and worshipping hype. Creating anything meaningful, whether a company, a piece of art, or a new idea, takes time, iteration, and evidence. I can dictate a thousand words in ten minutes, but they will not be worth reading until I spend hours editing and refining. The same is true in business. Raw inspiration is not enough; craftsmanship makes it real.
People forget that most genuine success stories unfold over decades, not quarters. Overnight successes are almost always ten-year journeys in disguise. The problem is that the market rewards quick stories over long-term results. Bubbles burst when narratives outpace numbers. When the hype fades, the storytellers move on to their next pitch. What remains are the builders, the people who were quietly doing the work all along. They survive every cycle because their foundation is real.
So when you hear the next big pitch—AI, crypto, green tech, or whatever comes next—pause before you buy in. Ask what is actually working today, not what might work tomorrow. Ask where the profit comes from and who bears the cost. Ask whether the numbers support the narrative. If they do not, you are not investing; you are speculating on a story.
Stories inspire us, but numbers ground us. Without that balance, economies inflate on emotion until reality brings them back down to size. The challenge for our era is not to stop dreaming, but to tether our dreams to something measurable, sustainable, and true. The future belongs not to those who tell the best stories, but to those who build the ones that last.
Jane Braun, the Clark Art Institute Sylvia and Leonard Marx Director of Collections and Exhibitions. Courtesy Clark Art Institute.
Clark Art Institute selected Jane Braun as Sylvia and Leonard Marx Director of Collections and Exhibitions
Williamstown— The Clark Art Institute has selected Jane Braun to serve as its Sylvia and Leonard Marx Director of Collections and Exhibitions. Braun comes to the Clark from the Harvard Art Museums where she has worked for the last ten years.
“We are genuinely delighted to welcome Jane Braun to the Clark,” said Esther Bell, Deputy Director and Robert and Martha Berman Lipp Chief Curator of the Clark. “Jane brings deep knowledge and extensive experience to her new role, and we look forward to engaging with her ideas and perspectives as she joins our team. Jane is arriving in the very beginning stages of our work on the upcoming Aso O. Tavitian Wing project, and we trust that her contributions to this exciting new chapter in the Clark’s history will be important in achieving our goals.”
Jane Braun. Courtesy Clark Art Institute.
In addition to managing the Clark’s collections team and its special exhibitions program, Braun will supervise the work of the Clark’s Publications Department and its photography studio. Braun currently serves as the Assistant Director for Exhibition and Collection Project Planning at the Harvard Art Museums, having held a series of increasingly responsible roles working on the museum’s temporary exhibition program as well as its permanent collection galleries since joining Harvard in 2015. Prior to joining the Harvard team, Braun served in curatorial and exhibition- related positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Braun holds a master’s degree in art history from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in the history of art from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in business administration from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
“I am honored to be joining the extraordinary team at the Clark during this important moment in its history,” said Jane Braun. “I have long admired the Clark’s dynamic exhibition program and commitment to showcasing its collection and look forward to contributing to that work while getting to know the vibrant surrounding community.”
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Berkshire United Way names Katherine von Haefen as President and CEO
Pittsfield— The Berkshire United Way (BUW) Board of Directors has officially approved Katherine von Haefen as president and CEO, effective immediately. She previously served as interim while continuing her role as director of Community Impact.
Von Haefen joined BUW in October 2021 and has led region-wide initiatives focused on early childhood education, food security, and nonprofit investment. She also spearheaded BUW’s $1 million annual investment strategy and played a key role in shaping the organization’s strategic plan.
Katherine von Haefen. Courtesy Berkshire United Way.
Von Haefen brings more than two decades of nonprofit leadership experience, including her tenure at United Way of Greater Houston, where she led major initiatives in early childhood development and public policy advocacy. She will continue to serve on the City of Pittsfield’s Preschool Partnership (CPPI) Leadership Committee, the MA Early Childhood Funders Collaborative Steering Committee, and the board of the Berkshire Area Health Education Center.
“Katherine has demonstrated exceptional leadership, vision, and dedication to our mission,” said BUW Board Chair Krystle Blake. “Her deep understanding of community needs and her ability to bring people together to create meaningful change make her the ideal leader for this next chapter. We are thrilled to have her at the helm.”
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NBT Bank announced expanded leadership roles for Aidan Gilligan and Adam Derwitsch
Pittsfield— NBT Bank announced that Aidan Gilligan has assumed an expanded role leading commercial banking for NBT Bank in Berkshire County, supported by Adam Derwitsch, who works closely with clients and team members in Berkshire County as a commercial portfolio manager.
As a senior commercial banking relationship manager, Gilligan oversees NBT’s efforts to deliver commercial banking solutions tailored to the specific needs of local businesses and organizations. In addition to lending, this includes deposit and treasury management services and the bank’s robust digital banking tools.
Aidan Gilligan. Courtesy NBT Bank.
Gilligan joined NBT in 2023 through its merger with Salisbury Bank and has more than 13 years of experience in financial services. Prior to banking, he worked in the insurance industry as an account executive at Wheeler & Taylor Insurance in Great Barrington. He is a 2025 graduate of NBT’s Emerging Leaders professional development program and he holds a bachelor’s degree from Southern New Hampshire University and graduated from the Connecticut School of Finance & Management. In 2021, he received recognition as one of the New Leaders in Banking by the Connecticut Bankers Association. Active in his community, Gilligan coaches with the Berkshire Rattlers Youth Hockey Organization and volunteers with Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington. He previously served on the Board of Directors of the Eagle Fund, Sheffield Kiwanis, Wyantenuck Country Club, and the Southern Berkshire Chamber of Commerce.
Adam Derwitsch. Courtesy NBT Bank.
Derwitsch joined NBT in 2023 as associate credit officer, contributing to the bank’s strong credit culture. In his expanded role, he will oversee portfolio management of the Berkshire County loan portfolio including credit and risk evaluation, financial analysis and modeling. With a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Clemson University’s Wilbur O. & Ann Powers College of Business, Derwitsch brings a strategic mindset to support sound lending decisions and long-term client success.
“Aidan and Adam represent the next generation of banking leadership in Berkshire County,” said Regional President Andreas Kapetanopoulos.
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Berkshire Money Management to open new office in Williamstown
Williamstown— Berkshire Money Management will open a new office at 136 Water Street in Williamstown later this year to better serve clients and neighbors in the northern Berkshires and southern Vermont.
With offices now in Dalton, Great Barrington, and Williamstown, clients can meet with their advisors close to home, wherever they live. The Water Street location, just around the corner from Spring Street and the Williams College campus, brings the firm’s financial-planning expertise to the heart of Williamstown’s business district. Advisors will begin meeting clients in Williamstown by appointment later this year, with a grand opening planned for early 2026.
The Williamstown office will be the home base of Financial Advisor Brendan Bullett, who joined BMM earlier this fall. Bullett has nearly two decades of experience helping employees of Williams College, North Adams Regional Hospital, Berkshire Health Systems, and other local organizations make the transition from saving for retirement to retiring with confidence. He will be joined by a full-time office support specialist.
The building is owned by BMM Co-Founder and Chief Engagement Officer Stacey Carver, who purchased the property earlier this year; a personal investment that reflects both her and the firm’s long-term commitment to the region. “The property is in great shape,” Carver shared. “We’re making a few cosmetic updates including new flooring and fresh furniture, but we’re nearly ready to welcome clients. We’re excited to become part of everyday life in Williamstown.”
The company isn’t waiting for a grand opening to become a part of the community. The firm recently joined the Williamstown Chamber of Commerce and is actively seeking ways to support local organizations and causes through sponsorships and community partnerships. Groups in the northern Berkshires interested in sponsorship support can reach out to info@berkshiremm.com for more information.
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MountainOne celebrates Pittsfield Community Food Pantry President Mary Wheat’s 92nd Birthday
Pittsfield— MountainOne recently celebrated Pittsfield Community Food Pantry President Mary Wheat’s 92nd birthday with a donation of 92 boxes of cereal for their annual Cereal Drive.
The Pittsfield Community Food Pantry, formerly the South Community Food Pantry, is the largest food pantry in Berkshire County and is run entirely by volunteers. This year’s Cereal Drive has brought in over 2,000 boxes of cereal.
Margherita Hoffman, Brenda Petell, Stacy Roman, and Jennifer Smith with Mary Wheat in the center. Courtesy MountainOne.
Brenda Petell, Vice President, Community Engagement Officer, along with Stacy Roman, Margherita Hoffman, and Jennifer Smith from the MountainOne Insurance Team, delivered 92 boxes of Shredded Mini-Wheats, balloons, a card, and a cake in honor of Mary Wheat’s 92nd birthday.
“We are excited to celebrate Mary’s birthday and all of the wonderful work that she does every day at the food pantry,” said Petell. “Our team was happy to deliver a birthday cake, balloons, and a goat-filled bag of goodies along with 92 boxes of cereal to support this vital community organization. I have had the pleasure of volunteering with Mary for over five years, and her leadership and commitment to the community are remarkable.”
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Greylock boosts access to local food through support of Berkshire Grown’s Mobile Farmers Market
Berkshire— The Berkshires is synonymous with farm-to-table culture, yet more than a third of Berkshire County experiences some level of food insecurity, and many farmers struggle to sustain their livelihood. According to the Greater Boston Food Bank, food insecurity rates in the Berkshires is at 39 percent, with children experiencing even higher rates at 43 percent statewide. Rural regions, such as the Berkshires, have limited transportation, higher housing costs, and lower wages, which create obstacles to affording fresh food.
Greylock Insurance Agency, along with partner Arbella Insurance Foundation and Greylock Federal Credit Union, has awarded a combined grant of $4,500 to Berkshire Grown to help fund the Berkshire Mobile Farmers Market.
Stephanie Bergman, Margaret Moulton, Lori Goodell, and Jennifer Connor Shumsky. Courtesy Greylock.
The Berkshire Mobile Farmers Market is one way Berkshire Grown helps feed people while supporting farmers. “Many areas, like the hill towns and Pittsfield’s inner city, lack nearby, walkable grocery stores or pantries,” said Katie Rubright, Berkshire Mobile Farmers Market Manager. “Not only does the Mobile Market make accessible fresh, nutritious food, it also strives to create an inclusive, stigma-free shopping experience with a tiered payment system. Shoppers can choose a price that fits their budget.”
“The program specifically benefits seniors, children, and historically underserved communities, particularly those in Environmental Justice neighborhoods,” continues Rubright. “We have the highest percentage of people more than 80 years old in the state, and many of them face mobility challenges. Our goal is to make locally grown food more accessible to the people who need it most, and at the same time, support small and mid-sized farms by helping bring their products to a wider market.”
In addition to the tiered payment system, which allows customers to pay retail price, a 50 percent discount, or receive up to $50 worth of food for free, the Mobile Market accepts Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Massachusetts Healthy Incentives Program. A key component of Berkshire Grown’s mission is to assist farmers in growing the food the community needs; the Mobile Market pays full prices for all products, regardless of how much the consumer is able to pay.
Photo by Brian Sowards, courtesy of The Organization for Word Peace.
In my experience, American presidents—Republican and Democrat alike—learn to love their wars and quickly come to expect near-unanimous support from the American people. Their impatience increases when that is not the case, and their annoyance grows with dissent. President Dwight Eisenhower trusted and relied on the bad advice of the Dulles brothers and allowed the CIA to mastermind the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, a blunder that led to the vicious Shah, his subsequent dictatorship, and decades of Iranian distrust. President John F. Kennedy’s own arrogance and his faith in the delusional “best and brightest” led to the quagmire of Vietnam. Lyndon followed him with ever more American interference in Southeast Asia and earned the chants he just could not bear: “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Nixon, just as stubborn, was ultimately undone by unrelenting public dissent. As for Reagon, let’s not forget Iran/Contra. Of course, Latin and South America, from Batista to Samosa and the Maryknoll nuns and the assassination of Allende in Chile, have often demonstrated the fallacies of America supremacy. On and on through Afghanistan and Iraq.
Such is the overwhelming power of the executive that such supremacy so often blinds the wager of war to what is really happening on the battlefield and with/to the American people for whom the war is supposedly being fought.
Donald Trump, as his mental and physical powers seem to be diminishing, is waging wars at home and abroad, blasting boats out of international waters and forcibly wrenching those without proper papers from their American communities and evicting them.
Clearly, Trump has not read Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” or paid attention to the madness Coppola portrayed in “Apocalypse Now.” So, I am not sure the president picked the best way to trumpet his excitement about his plan to wage war on American soil:
Donald Trump’s post on Truth Social, Sept. 6, 2025. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added.
President Donald Trump on Saturday indicated deportations would occur in Chicago during enhanced immigration enforcement operations slated to begin this weekend.
Trump posted a parody meme referencing the 1979 film ‘Apocalypse Now’ on the social media platform Truth Social, saying, ‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning … Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.’
The dramatic meme shows Trump in front of the Chicago skyline with helicopters above, along with flames and a cloud of smoke. The president’s post referenced the ‘Department of War,’ which was approved as a secondary title to the Department of Defense under an executive order he signed Friday.
Ramped-up federal immigration enforcement efforts were expected in Chicago as early as this weekend, with operations based at Naval Station Great Lakes in suburban North Chicago.
His June 7, 2025, executive order made clear his intentions:
Donald Trump’s June 7, 2025, Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added.
And he released this exaggerated list of dangers he hoped would justify his war at home:
Donald Trump’s June 7, 2025, Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added.
Unfortunately, history is no longer the strong point it once was for many of us. So, I am guessing few remember the chilling refrain: “Where are your papers?” And for those who have not seen a movie about the Nazis in a while, it is all too easy to live a life insulated from the reality that thousands are being disappeared from their jobs, their families, and their communities. Unless we work with, are friends with, or live close to those folks who have managed to secure their papers and those many who are without them, we do not notice when they are plucked from their cars, dragged from where they work, seized while dropping off or picking up their kids from school, or arrested even when appearing at a scheduled court hearing for their asylum claim. A very small percentage of us have witnessed when they are handcuffed and stuffed into ICE vehicles and disappeared from sight. Which means they will not be working the next day at that dairy farm, the meatpacking plant, on that construction site, cooking breakfast at your neighborhood diner, or washing dishes behind the scenes at that swanky restaurant you treat yourself to.
And so, if you do not know what is really happening, if you are not aware of Operation Midway Blitz, you probably cannot really appreciate the deep trauma the immigrant community is experiencing. The fear that at any moment, a masked ICE agent, completely convinced he/she is on a righteous mission, told he/she does not really need a judicial warrant or, for that matter, to identify themselves, can with several other agents grab you off the street, restrain you, handcuff you, and, without any need to explain or justify, take you away from the life you have been living and deposit you in an ICE detention center.
From the very beginning, the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois have made clear their opposition to federal agents policing their communities. And federal action has inspired two different lawsuits. The first: State of Illinois and The City of Chicago v. Donald Trump and the second by journalists and clergy in response to the violent responses of ICE and Border Patrol agents to peaceful protests.
Judge Perry, assigned to the first case, was faced with two remarkably different versions of the reality on the ground. I urge you take some time to read her compelling legal analysis. But in the meantime, I am going to summarize. She acknowledged the government and the state and Chicago had vastly different ideas of what was happening on the ground, specifically at the Broadview ICE Detention Center:
On October 4, there were approximately thirty protestors at the ICE Processing Center … According to DHS’s representative at the ICE Processing Center, local law enforcement arrived within five to ten minutes, immediately pushed the protestors back to the designated protest areas, and controlled the scene … DHS did not have to intervene with any protestors … Despite this, on the same day, the President issued a memorandum stating that the ‘situation in the State of Illinois, particularly in and around the city of Chicago, cannot continue. Federal facilities in Illinois, including those directly supporting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Federal Protective Services (FPS), have come under coordinated assault by violent groups intent on obstructing Federal law enforcement activities … I have determined that these incidents, as well as the credible threat of continued violence, impede the execution of the laws of the United States. I have further determined that the regular forces of the United States are not sufficient to ensure the laws of the United States are faithfully executed, including in Chicago’ … This memorandum authorized the federalization of Illinois National Guard members under 10 U.S.C. § 12406. Id. at 17. It further authorized those personnel to ‘perform those protective activities that the Secretary of War determines are reasonably necessary to ensure the execution of Federal law in Illinois, and to protect Federal property in Illinois.’ Id.
[Emphasis added.]
She continues:
Defendants report significantly more violence in the Chicago area than the Broadview Police or ISP … Some of what these declarants complain about is, while aggravating, insulting, or unpleasant, also Constitutionally protected …There is no evidence within the declarations that, to the extent there have been acts of violence, those acts of violence have been linked to a common organization, group, or conspiracy. And with respect to Defendants’ declarants’ descriptions of the ICE Processing Center protests, the version of the facts set forth in these affidavits are impossible to align with the perspectives of state and local law enforcement presented by Plaintiffs.
The Court therefore must make a credibility assessment as to which version of the facts should be believed. While the Court does not doubt that there have been acts of vandalism, civil disobedience, and even assaults on federal agents, the Court cannot conclude that Defendants’ declarations are reliable …
Plaintiffs contend that the deployment of the Illinois and Texas National Guard comes not from any good faith concern about the ability of federal law enforcement to do their jobs unimpeded, but rather from President Trump’s animus for Illinois’s elected officials. In support of this argument, Plaintiffs attach social media posts by President Trump attacking Illinois Governor JB Pritzker as ‘weak,’ ‘pathetic,’ ‘incompetent,’ and ‘crazy.’ … Plaintiffs have also presented evidence that President Trump strongly disagrees with various policy decisions by Illinois officials, including ‘sanctuary’ policies in Illinois and the City of Chicago that limit the cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities … Plaintiffs have also presented evidence demonstrating President Trump’s longstanding belief that crime in Chicago is out of control, and that federal agents should be used to stop that crime …
Especially at issue is the scope of 10 U.S.C. § 12406, the statutory predicate for the current National Guard deployment in Illinois. Because there is not an abundance of case law interpreting Section 12406, the Court begins with some historical background … During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, one topic of hot debate among the Founders was how to properly scope the federal government’s military powers. Indeed, among the grievances directed against King George III by signatories to the Declaration of Independence was his keeping ‘in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the Consent of our Legislatures.’ Decl. of Independence para. 13 (U.S. 1776). Thus, while the Founders recognized that well-trained soldiers were necessary ‘for providing for the common defense’ of our young nation, they were concerned ‘that a national standing Army posed an intolerable threat to individual liberty and to the sovereignty of the separate states.’ …
Another concern among some Founders was the extent of the federal government’s powers to deploy federal military forces—including federalized militia—for purposes of general law enforcement. For instance, in response to a proposal to add language to the Constitution which would empower the federal government to ‘call forth the force of the Union’ against states that passed laws contravening those of the union, James Madison moved successfully for its removal, opining that such use of force against a state ‘would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment.’ …
Regarding the militia, the Founders chose to vest Congress—not the President—with constitutional power ‘to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions,’ U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 15 (the ‘Calling Forth Clause’), as well as to provide for the ‘organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 16. …
The final piece of our historical puzzle is 10 U.S.C. § 12406, which Defendants represent supplies the authority for the deployment of federalized National Guard troops into Illinois. In its current incarnation, it provides:
Whenever
(1) the United States, or any of the Commonwealths or possessions, is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation;
(2) there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States; or
(3) the President is unable with regular forces to execute the laws of the United States;
the President may call into Federal service members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel invasion, suppress rebellion, or execute those laws. 10 U.S.C. § 12406.
… Before turning to the meaning of Section 12406’s subsections, a note on deference: Defendants are not entitled to ‘deference’ on the issue of what constitutes a rebellion for the purposes of the Act, nor what it means to be ‘unable with the regular forces to execute the laws.’ Those are matters of statutory interpretation, a function committed to the courts …
Defendants are, however, entitled to a certain amount of deference on the question of whether the facts constitute the predicates laid out in Section 12406 … Still, Defendants must support their position by pointing the Court to some of the facts upon which it bases its conclusions and by offering explanations which paint a substantially reasonable picture justifying the Executive’s position … And in all of the memoranda actually deploying the National Guard to Illinois, the Court does not see any factual determination by President Trump regarding a rebellion brewing here … the Court cannot find reasonable support for a conclusion that there exists in Illinois a danger of rebellion satisfying the demands of Section 12406(2) …
Turning to Section 12406(3), the parties dispute both its meaning and whether its conditions have been met … Altogether then, the phrase ‘unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States’ means that in order for the President to call forth the militia to execute the laws, the President must be incapable with the regular forces—that is, lacking the power and force with the military alone—to execute the laws.
Here, Defendants have made no attempt to rely on the regular forces before resorting to federalization of the National Guard, nor do Defendants argue (nor is there any evidence to suggest) that the President is incapable with the regular forces of executing the laws. Therefore, the statutory predicate contained within Section 12406(3) has not been met on that basis alone …
As discussed, the Tenth Amendment provides that ‘powers not by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved delegated to the United States to the States respectively, or to the people.’ U.S. Const., Tenth Am. These reserved and residuary powers include, among other things, ‘the police power, which the Founders denied the National Government and reposed in the States.’ United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S 598, 617-18 (2000) …
In addition to showing a likelihood of success on the merits, Plaintiffs must also show that ‘irreparable injury is likely in the absence of an injunction.’ … Here, the Court concludes that Plaintiffs have demonstrated at least two types of irreparable harm … First, as is discussed above, the Court concludes that Defendants’ actions likely violate the Tenth Amendment, and ‘[t]he existence of a continuing constitutional violation constitutes proof of an irreparable harm.’ … Second, the Court finds that deployment of National Guard members is likely to lead to civil unrest, requiring deployment of state and local resources to maintain order. There has been overwhelming evidence presented that the provocative nature of ICE’s enforcement activity has caused a significant increase in protest activity, requiring the Broadview Police, ISP, and other state and local law enforcement agencies to respond … State and local police have indicated that they are ready, willing, and able to keep the peace as ICE continues its operations in Chicago …To add to this milieu militarized actors unfamiliar with local history and context whose goal is’ vigorous enforcement’ of the law, Doc. 62 at 34, is not in the community’s interest … For the foregoing reasons, the Court GRANTS Plaintiffs’ request for a TRO.
[Emphasis added.]
While Judge Perry supported the state and city’s contention that President Trump’s call for federal troops was overreach, the people, unfortunately, were living with the consequences of the escalation of ICE’s attempt to round up as many “illegal aliens” as possible. Even without his federal troops, Donald Trump has indeed brought war to Chicago and its environs. And his ICE and Border Patrol agents were rounding up those they suspected and those who were appalled by their behavior. Here is Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino:
Chicago Headline Club v. Kristi Noem, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added.
They write:
Local and national press have continuously covered the federal law enforcement deployment to Chicago and the Broadview ICE facility … Federal agents have responded with a pattern of extreme brutality in a concerted and ongoing effort to silence the press and civilians. Dressed in full combat gear, often masked, carrying weapons, bearing flash grenades and tear gas canisters, and marching in formation, federal agents have repeatedly advanced upon those present at the scene who posed no imminent threat to law enforcement. Snipers with guns loaded with pepper balls, paintballs, and rubber bullets are stationed on the roof of the Broadview ICE facility with their weapons trained on the press and civilians. Federal agents have tackled and slammed people to the ground; they have lobbed flash grenades and tear gas canisters indiscriminately into the crowd; they have fired rubber bullets and pepper balls at selected individuals; and they have cursed and shouted at demonstrators to provoke them.
[Emphasis added.]
Most people have not heard the testimony of these religious leaders in Chicago whose attempts to provide witness have been met with violence. Here are excerpts from the “Declaration of David Black,” a Presbyterian minister:
I am an ordained minister in The Presbyterian Church (PCUSA … For the past nine years, I have worked as a minister in various parish and chaplaincy settings. I am currently the Senior Pastor and Head of Staff at The First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, located in the Woodlawn neighborhood of South Side Chicago.
With the arrival in the Chicago area of many additional officers employed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), I felt called and compelled by my Christian faith to come to the area around the Broadview ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois to minister to the ICE officers there and to urge them to repent and turn away from unnecessary and brutal enforcement of the immigration laws … Each time at Broadview, I was visibly attired in clerical garb: a black shirt with a white clerical collar and black slacks. My consistent and explicit orientation has been as a Christian minister, offering prayers, blessings and imprecations from scripture, calling ICE officers to repent and believe the Good News, leading the gathering in singing traditional hymns and Christian spirituals, and offering spiritual support and consolation to those gathered in protest …
I returned to the Broadview ICE facility on September 19 at about 7 p.m. I was with a group of about 50 to 100 protesters, including other clergy, on the street in front of the ICE facility. I stood on the sidewalk in front of the facility fence. A group of ICE officers were stationed on the roof of the facility above me. Those officers were all masked and were dressed in military-style fatigues. They carried guns. I extended my arms, palms outstretched toward the ICE officers, in a traditional Christian posture of prayer and blessing. I do not remember the words that I used, but in substance I urged the ICE officers to repent and to believe the Good News that the Kingdom of God is near as I remained in a posture of prayer.
Without any warning, and without any order or request that I and others disperse, I was suddenly fired upon by ICE officers. In rapid fire, I was hit seven times on my arms, face and torso with exploding pellets that contained some kind of chemical agent. It was clear to me that the officers were aiming for my head, which they struck twice. One of the pellets that hit me on the head caused me to collapse to my knees. Others who were there gathered around me formed a human shield to protect me as the ICE officers continued to fire on our huddle …
After I was hit, a friend began to help me wash out my eyes. But almost immediately, a group of ICE agents stormed out of the ICE facility toward me and the other protesters. On the street in front of the facility, they targeted the people who were down, including me, pushing and shoving us toward a driveway across from the facility and trapping about a dozen of us in a kettling maneuver. They were armed and brandishing their weapons, and I feared for my life and the lives of other protesters in the kettle. The ICE officers deployed canisters of chemical weapons indiscriminately. One officer shoved me and sprayed chemicals directly on me, aiming for my head and dousing my face. While I was attempting to escape the kettle, officers kept shoving me and spraying the back of my head. By the time I had gotten away, the agents had soaked me in liquid chemicals from my head to my toes. I was wearing a heavy denim jacket, shirt and undershirt, heavy denim jeans, and long underwear. The amount of chemical spray deployed was such that it penetrated through all these layers and covered every part of my body. The photograph below shows this occurring:
[Emphasis added.]
An ICE agent spraying David Black with pepper spray. Exhibit One, “Declaration of David Black.” Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law.
The declaration continues:
I fear that, should I protest, pray, and minister at Broadview, I will be met with violent retaliation. Given the unprovoked escalations of ICE agents against me and other peaceful protesters, I also fear that their supervising officers will not deter them from using deadly force against protesters. The memory of what happened to me sometimes provokes a physical reaction. Nonetheless, my faith strongly calls me to return, even in the face of my fear …
In fact, local religious leaders have been leading peaceful demonstrations every week at the ICE Broadview Detention Center for decades. Here are excerpts from the “Declaration of Father Brendan Curran, OP“:
I am a Catholic priest with the with Dominican Friars with the Province of St. Albert the Great, USA. I am the North American Dominican promoter for justice and peace …
I was one of the original Catholic priests that started the Friday prayer vigils at Broadview Detention Center almost 19 years ago. I have been regularly attending the Friday prayer vigil since it began.
At the vigils, I, along with other Catholic priests, sisters and brothers, other religious clergy and lay people, gather to pray the rosary and pray for the people who are detained in that facility, their families and the people that work there, including agents employed by the Immigration Customs Enforcement Agency, known as ICE.
I have attended the Friday prayer vigils at Broadview Detention Center as an expression of my Christian faith and its tenet that I am called to welcome my brother and sisters who are immigrants.
That tenet of my faith is rooted in the teachings of Jesus, who was also a refugee when he fled to Egypt. For example, the Book of Matthew, Chapter 25, which states, in part: ‘For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you welcomed me.’
In the past, after the vigil, two of the vigil participants, were permitted to board the bus and pray with immigrants who were being transported to O’Hare Airport and/or across the border to offer prayer, support and communicate resources they could use once they were deported.
[Emphasis added.]
But all that changed with the Trump administration’s decision to focus its energies on deporting one million “illegal aliens” this year. Father Brendan Curran continues:
“Declaration of Father Brendan Curran.” Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added.
I am an ordained minister in the Unitarian Universality Church … I currently work as a minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Hinsdale.
With the arrival in the Chicago area of many additional officers employed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (‘ICE’), I felt called by my faith to come to the area around the Broadview ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois to protest the unnecessary and brutal enforcement of the immigration laws and minister to the people there …
On each of those three occasions, I have been standing outside the Broadview ICE facility wearing my religious collar and sometimes also my stole … I have always been on public grounds like the street, sidewalk, or grass next to the sidewalk.
On September 5, 2025, when I was at Broadview I was praying and sitting with people praying the rosary. ICE agents were there. I could recognize them based on their uniforms. Later after the prayer vigil was finished, ICE deployed some pepper balls against the people gathered. ICE was not as aggressive on September 5 as they would later become.
“On September 19, 2025, I was present on the street and sidewalk outside 1930 Beach St. I was wearing my collar. I was praying and singing with other clergy.
Suddenly there was a big escalation in the use of force by the ICE officers. There were ICE agents on the roof of the building launching pepper balls. We were not told to move before they began launching pepper balls.
I have severe asthma and had to move away from the building because of the chemical weapons. I had to leave to rinse out my eyes. My breathing continued to be effected even after I left.
On September 26, 2025 I was at Broadview on the Harvard Ave. side. I was on the sidewalk, street, and grass. I was wearing my collar … We were standing around singing, praying, and chanting.
The ICE agents were dressed in their same uniforms as before and they further escalated their violence. They would intermittently use chemical weapons or rubber bullets. We did not do anything to provoke these attacks and there was no warning. We were just standing around singing and praying and they would deploy weapons against us …
As a person of faith, I feel called to be in solidarity with the individuals in the ICE facility and to live my faith commitments. I want to continue to express my faith at the Broadview ICE facility, even if there is a risk of being continually tear-gassed and hit with rubber bullets.
It is hereby ORDERED that Defendants, their officers, agents, assigns, and all persons acting in concert with them (hereafter referred to as ‘Federal Agents’), are temporarily ENJOINED in this judicial district from:
a. Dispersing, arresting, threatening to arrest, threatening or using physical force against any person whom they know or reasonably should know is a Journalist, unless Defendants have probable cause to believe that the individual has committed a crime. Defendants may order a Journalist to change location to avoid disrupting law enforcement …
The order enjoined federal agents from:
b. Issuing a crowd dispersal order requiring any person to leave a public place that they lawfully have a right to be, unless dispersal is justified by exigent circumstances …
c. For purposes of this Order, a crowd dispersal order is a lawful command given by a Federal Agent for all persons to leave a designated area when three or more persons are committing acts of disorderly conduct that are likely to cause substantial harm in the immediate vicinity.
d. Using riot control weapons––including kinetic impact projectiles (KIPs), Compressed Air Launchers (e.g., PLS and FN303), Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) Spray, CS gas, CN gas, or other chemical irritants, 40 mm Munitions Launchers, less-lethal shotguns, Less-Lethal Specialty Impact-Chemical Munitions (LLSI-CM), Controlled Noise and Light Distraction Devices (CNLDDs), Electronic Control Weapons (ECWs)––on members of the press, protesters, or religious practitioners who are not posing an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer or others;
e. Using riot control weapons (including those described above) at identified targets, if it is reasonably foreseeable that doing so could result in injury to the press, protesters, or religious practitioners who are not posing an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer or others, unless such force is necessary to stop an immediate and serious threat of physical harm to a person …
h. Using force, such as pulling or shoving a person to the ground, tackling, or body slamming an individual who poses no immediate threat of physical harm to others, unless necessary and proportional to effectuate an apprehension and arrest …
j. Seizing or arresting any non-violent protester who is not resisting a lawful crowd dispersal order, unless there is specific probable cause to believe that the individual has committed a crime for which a custodial arrest is warranted and for which the law enforcement officer has lawful authority to make an arrest; and …
2. It is further ORDERED that all Federal Agents, excepting those who do not wear a uniform or other distinguishing clothing or equipment in the regular performance of their official duties or are engaged in undercover operations in the regular performance of their official duties, must have visible identification (for which a unique recognizable alphanumeric identifier sequence will suffice) affixed to their uniforms or helmets and prominently displayed, including when wearing riot gear.
[Emphasis added.]
Unfortunately, federal agents continued to inflict violence on both suspects and community members who attempted to document their activities. According to CWBChicago, on October 28, 2025:
Attorneys representing Chicago media outlets and other plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit over alleged excessive force by immigration agents say the government’s officers have violated a judge’s restraining order during recent enforcement operations …
According to the plaintiffs’ latest filing, Bovino has disregarded Ellis’ authority and the limits she imposed on federal agents’ use of force. The notice filed Sunday includes a description of an incident in Little Village last Thursday that lawyers say directly violated Ellis’ temporary restraining order.
‘Defendant Bovino appeared to exhibit disregard for the Court’s order limiting federal agents’ use of force, including crowd-control devices,’ the filing said. Attorneys allege video footage shows Bovino tossing what appeared to be a tear gas canister toward bystanders without warning, even though ‘the crowd was not being violent or committing any crimes.’ They say Bovino then threw a second canister moments later while another agent fired one into the crowd ‘at head level.’
Block Club, Oct. 28, 2025. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added.
CWBChicago continues:
The Department of Homeland Security released its own account of the incident on Twitter, describing the scene as a violent confrontation between agents and ‘a large crowd of 75 to 100 rioters.’
DHS said the crowd ‘surrounded’ officers near 27th Street and Whipple Avenue, fired commercial fireworks, and hurled objects, including a rock that allegedly struck Bovino in the head.
‘Riot control measures were deployed, including by Chief Bovino … The use of chemical munitions was conducted in full accordance with CBP policy and was necessary to ensure the safety of both law enforcement and the public.’
According to CWBChicago:
Attorneys for the plaintiffs flatly disputed the government’s account, calling the DHS statement ‘a lie.’ Their filing asserts that multiple witnesses and video recordings show the crowd was peaceful and that agents gave no warnings or dispersal orders before deploying gas. They also said they have found no evidence that anyone fired commercial fireworks, as the government claimed.
Bovino appeared Tuesday for a tense hearing before U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in downtown Chicago. She questioned him about reports of aggressive immigration enforcement and the federal agents’ treatment of protesters, journalists and even children during the ongoing ‘immigration blitz’ …
’They don’t have to like what you’re doing. And that’s OK. That’s what democracy is,’ Ellis said during the hearing, referring to protesters or others who might be voicing opposition to federal agents on the ground. ‘They can say they don’t like what you’re doing, that they don’t like how you’re enforcing the laws, that they wish you would leave Chicago and take the agents with you. They can say that, and that’s fine. But they can’t get teargassed for it.’
While Bovino’s immigration enforcement efforts came under scrutiny Tuesday, President Donald Trump threatened to send ‘more than the National Guard’ to combat crime in blue cities like Chicago.
In addition to having Bovino appear before her with daily reports, Judge Ellis ruled that he provide records of the times agents resorted to using force and the corresponding body camera video of those events, going back to the onset of their operation on September 2.
The DOJ immediately appealed and the Appeals Court granted a stay, suspending Bovino’s daily need to report in person but allowing Judge Ellis’ demand for incident reports and body camera video to remain.
This case presents what has become a disturbing and recurring pattern: Federal officers are attempting to enforce federal immigration law in an urban area containing significant numbers of illegal aliens. The federal agents’ efforts are met with prolonged, coordinated, violent resistance that threatens their lives and safety and systematically interferes with their ability to enforce federal law.
That resistance succeeds to an alarming degree in its aim of obstructing federal agents from enforcing federal immigration law. Federal agents are forced to desperately scramble to protect themselves and federal property, allocating resources away from their law-enforcement mission to conduct protective operations instead. Receiving tepid support from local forces, they are often left to fend for themselves in the face of violent, hostile mobs. Confronted with intolerable risks of harm to federal agents and coordinated, violent opposition to the enforcement of federal law, the President lawfully determines that he is unable to enforce the laws of the United States with the regular forces and calls up the National Guard to defend federal personnel, property, and functions in the face of ongoing violence.
In response, Justice Barrett referred the appeal to the full Court, asking for briefs on the issue she felt was most paramount, the meaning of “regular forces”:
Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright L aw. Highlighting added.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Trump administration and Illinois officials for additional briefs on their dispute over whether President Donald Trump can send troops to Chicago, pushing a decision on the matter into mid-November at the earliest.
The request means that Trump’s proposed troop deployment, which was initially halted by a federal judge on Oct. 9, would remain blocked for more than a month … The court asked for the briefs to be submitted by Nov. 17, which means any decision would come sometime after.
Meanwhile, local citizens continue to capture what is happening in their communities. Here are two still frames of excerpts from a TikTok video showing two masked ICE agents, smashing the side windows of a pickup truck to grab a suspect and force him into their unmarked vehicle:
ICE agents smashing the window of a pickup truck, Oct. 28, 2025. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added.
Then his subsequent arrest. How much different would it be if ordinary criminals dressed in similar gear staged an abduction?
ICE agents taking a man away, Oct. 28, 2025. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added.
I, for one, am extremely worried about how Justice Barrett has framed the critical issue of Donald Trump’s war on Chicago. In contrast, Judge Ellis impressively analyzed the key components of the case: Did events on the ground in Chicago truly warrant federal intervention? Was there consistent violence serious enough to prevent ICE and Border Patrol agents from doing their jobs? Was there any activity that truly entitled the government to consider this an invasion or a rebellion? Did, in fact, the presence of government agents make things worse? And was the president able with the regular forces he commands, in fact, to execute the laws of the land?
I worry that Barrett and MAGA will not see reality as it is actually experienced by the ordinary men and women living in these communities—including the two judges who have already considered the issues at hand—but from the perspective, instead, of the executive. I worry they will look to find any evidence at all that will allow them to justify him waging his war at home. If that proves to be the case, we will be one step closer to losing our liberty.
Driving through paintings
of ribbon roads
and jasper fields.
Of red barns
with green silage.
Paintings of pink sunsets
and orange pumpkin patches,
stroking garden plots
with color.
Driving through paintings
of osprey, hawk,
dove and kestrel
soaring over pastures of cows –
black and white on the landscape.
Paintings of bison
breathing white smoke in wintry air.
Bounding over hills in flowing formation,
like starlings swirl in unison through sky.
Driving through paintings
of covered bridges and fishermen
angling on riverbeds in deep boots.
Paintings of sea coves
with placid ocean at low tide.
Woodland paths of pine cover
and sun splashed pond,
where lily pads float serenely—
floral passengers in tow.
Driving through paintings
of steep mountain roads
with red autumn color
curving sharply toward rivers far below –
waterfalls foaming white.
Paintings of small towns
with gingerbread houses,
where the smell of morning coffee resides.
Driving through paintings
of apple orchards,
with gracefully shaped trees.
Of crooked fence posts
and arching elms.
Paintings of mountain backdrops
and lattice bridges.
Slivers of lake
reflecting sunlight.
Driving through paintings
of hay bales
patterned on pastures.
Rotund giants of food
for the sweet-faced ewes
and brown-eyed Guernseys.
Paintings of men on tractors,
bare-chested and suntanned,
harvesting corn
from the vast fields.
Driving through paintings
enlivened and at peace.
Embraced by the landscape
and rich life marked upon it.
Lenox — Three-time Grammy-winning jazz drummer and educator Ulysses Owens Jr. will appear with his band Generation Y at Tanglewood’s Linde Center for Music and Learning at 7 p.m. on Friday, November 7. Owens will headline an evening that highlights his genre-spanning career as performer, educator, and cultural catalyst. Hailed by The New York Times for “balancing excitement gracefully” and “shining with innovation,” Owens arrives fresh from international tours, crossover projects, and chart-topping record releases including “A New Beat,” which spent eight weeks at number one on JazzWeek and landed on multiple “Best of 2024” lists.
I spoke with Owens via Zoom this week ahead of his highly anticipated Tanglewood appearance. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
‘A New Beat’ has been celebrated as one of the best jazz albums of 2024. What does this record represent to you in terms of your evolution as an artist?
‘A New Beat’ is exactly what it states in that it’s a new beat. It’s a new sound. It’s a new wave and dimension of my career. I’ll tell you the story of how we came to be an ensemble, and I’ve shared this in different iterations.
Essentially, Myles Weinstein, a former manager, came to me and said around 2018, ‘Ulysses, what do you want to do?’
And at that time, we had spent a few years just trying to create projects to get booked, which is what happens a lot in jazz and classical and even popular music, where you start trying to create these concept projects. And I had done that. I had ‘Songs of Freedom,’ which had done well. I’d had some other things that I’d done.
And finally, he said, ‘Man, I don’t care about concept. What makes you happy?’
And I said, ‘What makes me happy is making music on a really high level.’
He says, ‘OK, that’s a good start.’
It was like a therapy session.
And then he says, ‘Who makes you happy?’
I said, ‘Well, I love playing with Christian McBride, and I love playing with Kurt Elling and all these great people, but I left their bands because I wanted to form my own vision.’
He says, ‘OK, who else makes you happy?’
I said, ‘Young musicians.’
He said, ‘Wow! Why is that?’
I said, ‘Because they are underdeveloped and it resonates with the part of me that’s still not developed,’ because Benny Golson taught me in 2001 at Julliard, and he said to all of us, ‘Hey, I’m 70-something years old, and I never want to get to a place where I felt I’ve mastered my art form.’
And we said, ‘Well, you are a master!’
He said, ‘Well, the day you really feel like you’ve become a master, you have to stop … and I never want to stop … So at this particular juncture, you should see yourself not as a fully evolved master.’
So from that moment on, I said to myself, ‘I need to always stay connected to people that keep me connected to the part of me that needs to thrive and needs to shift to the next level.’
So at that point, Myles and I started building this band.
He said, ‘All right. Well, who are the young musicians that you want to work with?’
So for me, it was a saxophonist by the name of Alexa Tarantino. It was a trumpeter by the name of Anthony Hervey. It was a bassist by the name of Philip Norris. And it was a pianist by the name of Luther Allison.
And so he said, ‘All right.’
At that time, they all were very much in the beginnings of their careers. Many of them had just moved to New York, and I met Philip and Alexa through Julliard. So at that point, I was saying, ‘All right. Here we are. I’ve got this group.’
And then Myles said, ‘Well, what do you want to call them?’
This was the fun moment, because we’re like, ‘The Young Line Collective’ and ‘The Young Line Initiative.’ We started going through all these different names. And I said, ‘What about Generation Y?’
And Myles said, ‘I love it!’
The trumpeter was Drew Ashby Anderson. He was a student at The New School. He subbed at Julliard one day, and I just liked his vibe. So—long story short—we started that band in 2019. We did a gig at Smalls, then we did a gig at the Jazz Standard. And it seemed like the concept was strong, but the band’s sound wasn’t really together, and then the pandemic happened.
Fast-forward: They got a gig for us in the middle of the pandemic, and then we played again. We did some other gigs. We did a tour of Florida. And at that time, Alexa went to play with Wynton Marsalis and Cécile McLorin Salvant. And Sarah Hanahan had joined the band. And that was when I said, ‘OK, we got something now,’ because Sarah came in with a certain kind of direction.
That’s when ‘A New Beat’ came to mind, because I was thinking, ‘Yo! I got to record these—what used to be kids—before they become famous!’
So I talked to Cellar Music. We were actually looking at some other projects, because I was producing some records, and they were saying, ‘Hey, what do you want to do?’
I said, ‘Hey, man! I’ve got this band, Generation Y, and I’ve got all the most talented musicians who are about to break off or break away in their careers and become incredible, and I think we have a chance at documenting them.’
So ‘A New Beat’ essentially documents a band in transition — one group that helped spark the original idea was moving on, while a new ensemble was coming to life … You have Anthony Hervey coming in, who was my Juilliard student, and Tyler Bullock, whose career is growing immensely.
So, to me, ‘A New Beat’ is a really beautiful capture of the onset of an idea and sort of the fulfillment and the actuality of an idea, and I think the audience took to it. It’s been my most successful album to date, and I’m truly grateful for it. It has really sparked a new season and a new element in my life. It also is effervescent for me. It is this thing that can continue to grow, and it’s very much in the spirit of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Bobby Watson, and Horizon—and all the other great quintets. So that’s a very long-winded way of saying what ‘A New Beat’ is and what it represents and what it has accomplished for me.
‘Songs of Freedom’ and ‘Soul Conversations’ both carry deep social and spiritual undertones. How do you view the relationship between jazz and social consciousness today?
Well, first of all, jazz is social consciousness. It is community. It is social music. It is people music. It came from the gutters, from the trenches, from the juke joints, and it was a space where social consciousness was perpetuated.
So you have places in Paris where the music was played, and you had writers and humanitarians come together. In Harlem, you had rent parties, and you had clubs where people came together, and they built on top of this music and created whole movements. You had the same thing happening around the world. So I don’t see jazz and social consciousness as two different entities. They’re actually a collective. I see them as an organism. One fuels the other, and they continue to re-create within themselves.
What I think you’re speaking to connects particularly to ‘Songs of Freedom.’ When you look at the Black Lives Matter movement—which inspired me at the time I created it—jazz, and the new version of jazz, were fueling a new wave of social awareness.
There was this place we were reaching because a kind of war—a war of minds, a war of races—had come out of hiding again. So, to keep my answer short, I’d say jazz and social consciousness are one breathing organism. And I think—maybe it was Baldwin who said it—that great art is fueled by reality and anger. If you feel nothing, if you’re angry about nothing, if nothing pushes you or unnerves you, then you can’t create anything.
For me, social consciousness starts with awareness—an awareness of society and a consciousness that asks, ‘How are we moving forward? What do we want? How can we make something different?’ I think jazz becomes the soundtrack to that movement, and that’s what ‘Songs of Freedom’ is all about.
For me, ‘Songs of Freedom’ was the first time I became angry. Well, excuse me, but I cannot lie: It was the first time I publicly expressed my anger.
I don’t like to show up in the jazz space as a Black man. I don’t want to have those conversations that start with ‘as an angry Black man.’ I’m a musician. I’m a person. But during that Black Lives Matter era, we were all so tired. And so ‘Songs of Freedom’ was my little way of saying, ‘Hey, world. I’m angry too, but I’m going to paint my anger into a 10- to 12-song presentation and get brilliant singers to sing it and play the hell out of the drums.’ It was my deposit to the movement, if that makes sense.
It sure does! Thank you! You’ve won three Grammy Awards and collaborated with people like Christian McBride and Kurt Elling. What did those experiences teach you about excellence and humility in jazz?
Well, that’s interesting. I’ve never been asked that question. I’ll start with the part that piques my interest: the humility piece. I think both Kurt and Christian have very strong egos and confidence in how they present themselves. But where I think the humility lives with them is in their desire to always reinvent themselves. I’ll give you two or three things they taught me, and hopefully that will feed the discussion you want to have from this question.
Christian McBride taught me how to be myself as a bandleader. He taught me that as a drummer, I don’t have to apologize for playing the drums and wanting to lead the band.
As a bassist, Christian led the band just as strongly as any of his counterparts: Josh Redman, Roy Hargrove, Mark Whitfield. The list goes on and on. He was not any less of a bandleader than any of those just for hiding behind a big instrument. So the first thing I learned from Christian was that I can be a great bandleader even though I don’t play a common band-leading instrument.
The second thing he taught me was to be organic and to let things form musically, organically. I often tell the story about what Christian said when he hired me. I said to myself, ‘Oh my god! I’m getting ready to play with Christian McBride!’ I emailed him every week asking, ‘What music do I need to practice?’
He never sent me anything.
Finally, I show up in Santa Cruz, Calif. We get on the bandstand at soundcheck. I’m nervous. I ask, ‘What are we going to play?’
He says, ‘Hey, man. How you feeling?’
I say, ‘I’m feeling good, Christian.’
‘All right, man. What you been listening to?’
‘Well, I was listening to Josh Redman live at the Village Vanguard.’
‘Oh, man. He plays Blakey on there, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Man, let’s play that.’
Christian built his repertoire from what he liked and what moved him, and he found the connective points of what could bring the two of us together, and he built a set list off of what he loved, what I love, and what we could love together. So I learned those things from him.
Kurt Elling taught me about presentation. He taught me that you don’t just get on stage with T-shirts and jeans and sneakers and play a show. He said to me, ‘You’re a jazz musician. You’re an ambassador … Build a show!’ So Kurt taught me how to literally build a moment in time that transcends audiences.
When I went to Kurt Elling shows, it was the first time I saw people cry from jazz. We had this show one time in Kansas City in the Blue Room, and a certain guy was so passionate about seeing Kurt, and something happened with his ticket or something, and his seat wasn’t available. The guy went into a full-blown tantrum and started crying. He was like, ‘You don’t know! I love Kurt! He’s the soundtrack of my life!’
I had never seen anybody react to jazz that way.
And I would see people come to Kurt Elling concerts that don’t normally come to jazz concerts. Audience members would dress up, and I’d say, ‘I’m used to people coming to grunge clubs for jazz!’
So Kurt taught me that his shows were an opportunity to create a presentation and that it was an opportunity to transcend people and that people were paying money to feel different.
It was like church. They need to feel better when they leave than they did when they showed up. Kurt taught me that. He also taught me how to be a good human being. We would literally go on three-week tours, get off the tour, and I’d say, ‘Kurt, I’m going home to bed, and I’m going out tonight to hang out.’
He says, ‘I’m getting out of the cab, and I’m meeting my daughter at the playground.’
And he did that constantly. He would leave the airport and go and take his daughter to school, or he’d go and play makeup with her. And I know we had just spent three weeks of 17 one-nighters zipping across the continent of Europe. But he didn’t care. He’s a family man, completely faithful to his wife. You know that old adage about musicians on the road—the drugs, the drinking? Not Kurt. He’s a family man who sings, and I never saw him compromise himself. I never saw him live outside of any bounds of integrity. He’s just a good human being who happened to be a jazz musician. Those things were super important to me. What these men taught me still lives, not only within me, but in how I choose to be a band leader.
The last thing I’ll say for both of them: They knew when to let people go—which means this: I went to both of them saying, ‘Hey, I got things I want to do. I want to be like you. I want to create you.’ And they both said, ‘We knew this day was going to come. You have our blessing.’ So those are some really key principles for me.
What do you believe is jazz music’s most powerful contribution to today’s cultural conversation?
First of all, I have to say, we’re not having a cultural conversation today. What we’re having today is a separation of culture and a spirit of division that is running rampant throughout this world, and it is so egregious to me. So, to say, ‘Jazz, what is it giving?’ or, ‘What is it contributing to today’s cultural conversation?’ There is no culture. There’s a commitment to the eradication of culture, and that’s very disheartening to me. What I think I can answer is that I think jazz has the ability to contribute if we make space to listen to it. And if we make space to go and experience it, I think it can help us reconnect with the culture within ourselves that we all come to this Earth with.
If I took the next 10 minutes and talked to Mark and talked to you, you all would tell me about the culture and how you were raised and your traditions and the things that were instilled in you and what your grandmother played or what your grandfather played or the music your parents listened to.
And we could have a beautiful conversation around the things that you all came to this world with and what I came to this world with, and we could walk away exploring three different cultures.
That’s not being supported today. So what I can say is, if we were in a space in society where that was being supported, I think jazz could be a constant reminder of what was, what is, and what is to come. If we were in such a space, that would be my answer.
But I think what we now have to do is, we have to go to a space of preservation. We have to go to a space of safeguarding and safekeeping, almost like people are going underground, which has happened in many different movements and wars. And so I think we’re in a space where we’ve got to come together. We got to preserve these manuscripts. I mean, literally the African-American Museum, they’re taking stuff out of it as we speak, right?
So I think somebody has to say, ‘These people that are trying to eradicate culture, let’s take these pieces, these artifacts, these gifts, these things that have stood the test of time in the music, orally and in actuality, and we need to safeguard them.’ And if we can do that over the course of the next few years or decade, then I think what jazz will become can be informed by those things. But right now, if I could just be frank, we got to hold onto our shit, bro.
Pittsfield — Rites of Passage & Empowerment, known as ROPE, will hold a fundraising dinner at 6 p.m. on Saturday, November 8, at the Berkshire Innovation Center to support its global leadership and cultural exchange program, ROPE World.
The Pittsfield-based nonprofit provides mentorship, academic support, travel opportunities, and leadership development for girls of color and young people identifying as female or nonbinary. Founded in 2010 by longtime youth advocate Shirley Edgerton, the organization aims to help young people recognize their potential as they transition into adulthood.
ROPE’s programming is divided into three groups: “Ambassadors” for participants ages 8 to 11, “Scholars” for ages 12 to 18, and “Alums” for graduates. Members meet monthly with peers and mentors, take part in skills-development workshops, and attend annual retreats. The organization also facilitates college visits, service-learning opportunities, and international travel, including cultural exchange programs in Africa. Financial assistance and ongoing mentorship continue for graduates pursuing college or professional pathways.
The program’s mission, Edgerton said, is to equip young people with the skills, confidence, and support networks they need to become independent, responsible, and community-minded adults. “We want our girls to discover their voices and understand that their futures are both possible and promising,” she said.
Edgerton founded ROPE after recognizing a gap in support for adolescent girls in Berkshire County. She observed that in mixed-gender youth spaces, girls often stepped back, allowing boys to take leadership roles and attention. She also saw limited opportunities for young women of color to interact with professional women who shared their cultural backgrounds and experiences.
“In Youth Alive, it became apparent that girls often didn’t focus on their own development and relegated themselves to secondary roles in the presence of boys,” Edgerton said, referring to “Youth Alive,” the arts program she helped lead beginning in 1995. She and other community leaders launched ROPE with the support of the Women of Color Giving Circle and the Pittsfield Public Schools.
ROPE began in 2010 with 15 high school students who met twice a month with psychologists, educators, and artists. Among the early instructors were psychologists Dr. Maria Sirois and Dr. Tameka Gillum, educator Claudette Webster, and anthropologist and dancer Marla Robertson. Youth Alive alumni Akilah Edgerton and Brett Westbrook served as program liaisons.
In its first year, programming focused on self-esteem, personal development, cultural identity, women’s history, college awareness, and the arts. In 2013, students requested year-round programming, and the organization expanded accordingly. Today, ROPE continues to support students through college, helping them pursue internships and entry-level employment.
Since its inception, ROPE reports that all participants have graduated from high school and avoided many of the social challenges facing their peers. Alumni often return to volunteer, mentor new participants, and contribute to the community.
Edgerton said the fundraising dinner will support continued travel and educational initiatives. “Exposure changes lives,” she said. “When our young people see the world—and see people who look like them succeeding in it—it strengthens their confidence and expands their possibilities.”
Tickets to ROPE’s fundraising dinner at 6 p.m. on Saturday, November 8, are available here.
