Great Barrington — With a snowstorm battering the East Coast, the final event of the W.E.B. Du Bois Legacy Festival was moved to Zoom on Monday, February 23.
The three-day event, which started on Saturday, February 21, was a tribute to William Edward Burghardt “W.E.B.” Du Bois, who was born in Great Barrington on February 23, 1868. Du Bois was a civil rights activist, historian, and sociologist and co-founded of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and was the editor of the NAACP’s journal, The Crisis.
In February 2021, the town declared Du Bois’ birthday, February 23, a municipal holiday. The annual festival is organized by Great Barrington’s W.E.B. Du Bois Legacy Committee to recognize that holiday.
On February 21, a performance of “W.E.B. Du Bois: An American Hero” was held at Monument Mountain Regional High School. On Sunday, February 22, a church service honoring Du Bois was held at Macedonia Baptist Church.
The February 23 virtual event was led by the CEO of Multicultural BRIDGE (Berkshire Resources for Integration of Diverse Groups and Education) and vice chair of the Legacy Committee, Gwendolyn VanSant.
At the beginning of the virtual event, vocalist Wanda Houston performed a musical interpretation of Du Bois’ “My Lord, What A Morning” from “Sorrow Songs” in his book “The Souls of Black Folk.”
After Houston’s performance, attendees held an open reading and discussion of Du Bois’ 1923 essay “Criteria for Black Art.”
Houston was eventually joined by MaryNell Morgan-Brown to perform other selections from “Sorrow Songs.”
“Even though Du Bois calls these songs ‘Sorrow Songs,’ he wrote that ‘[t]hrough all the sorrow of the Sorrow Songs there breathes a hope — a faith in the ultimate justice of things,’” Morgan-Brown quoted from “The Souls of Black Folk.” “‘The minor cadences of despair change often to triumph and calm confidence. Sometimes it is faith in life, sometimes a faith in death, sometimes assurance of boundless justice in some fair world beyond. But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins. Is such a hope justified? Do the Sorrow Songs sing true?’”
Du Bois’ great-grandson Jeffrey DuBois Peck read from Du Bois 1952 book “In Battle for Peace: The Story of My 83rd Birthday.” “It’s interesting in the book how he speaks about his feelings about Africa and about how proud we should be,” Peck said. “And he speaks of other people’s origins and how they are proud of where they’re from. Thus, we should be just as proud of where we’re from.”
Peck proceeded to read two pages from the book that he felt relevant to today’s modern society:
‘As, then, a citizen of the world as well as of the United States of America, I claim the right to know and think and tell the truth as I see it. 1 believe in Socialism as well as Democracy. I believe in Communism wherever and whenever men are wise and good enough to achieve it; but I do not believe that all nations will achieve it in the same way or at the same time. I despise men and nations which judge human beings by their color, religious beliefs or income. I believe in free enterprise among free men and individual initiative under physical, biological and social law. I hate War.
…
‘I do not believe that loyalty to the United States involves hatred for other peoples, nor will I promise to support my country ‘Right or Wrong.’ I will defend this country when it is right. I will condemn it when it is wrong.’
