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Leigh Davis speaks at Berkshire County NAACP meeting about personal experiences with racism, issues impacting Berkshire County

“[My parents' work] ingrained in me this idea of public service and believing in something outside of yourself, which is something that has been a thread through my whole life,” Davis said. “I was surrounded by this whirlwind of public service and giving back to the community, and this is part of my DNA.”

Berkshire County — Great Barrington Selectboard Vice Chair Leigh Davis spoke at the Berkshire County NAACP membership meeting on Wednesday, March 6.

Davis is a candidate running for the seat to be vacated by State Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli (D – 3rd Berkshire District). In late February, State Rep. Pignatelli announced that, after 22 years in office, he would not be running again.

During the meeting, which was held virtually via Zoom, Davis, a native of Washington, D.C. who previously lived in Ireland, spoke about her family’s background and how she ended up in Berkshire County. “I’m a single parent to three children, and I came over from Ireland in 2009 when my children were very young,” Davis said. “I purchased the house in Great Barrington in 2008 when my children were three, five, and seven years old. I know what it is like to struggle. I was a tenured professor in Ireland [at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology in Galway, Ireland], but I chose to seek out a better life for the health of myself and my children.”

Davis said that when she moved to Berkshire County she did not have a job or any friends in the community. “But I believed in a leap of faith, and I believed in this community,” Davis said. “And I have this lived experience of knowing what it’s like to do the Berkshire shuffle to struggle as a single mom.”

Davis went on to speak about her family’s history, including her father Lloyd Davis and her mother Mary Kay Davis. Lloyd Davis, who died in 2007, was the first vice president and chief operating officer of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center on Nonviolent Social Change, as well as a longtime employee in the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. Working at the center, he was a key proponent for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day federal holiday, which was first observed in 1986. Mary Kay Davis was an assistant to Sargent Shriver, founding director of the Peace Corps.

“I’m a woman of color, my father is Black, and my mom is white,” Davis said. “They married in the 1960s. In 1965, when they moved onto our street in a suburb just out of Washington, D.C., two families moved off of the street because of the color of my dad’s skin. The neighbor across the street who lived there for 40 years did not talk to us once. It was outright racism because they did not agree with having a Black person on the street.”

Davis also spoke about having to deal with racism as she grew up. “I was a child that didn’t look white and like the other kids on the street,” she said. “I remember telling some of my friends that I was from the Bahamas and that my dad was from the Bahamas, and the reason why I’m tan is because of that. I thought I would be more accepted for my tan skin. I was actually embarrassed by my father, which deeply pains me when I think about that. I really lived this experience of almost ‘double consciousness’ that W.E.B. Du Bois speaks about in 1903’s ‘The Souls of Black Folk.’ This kind of being able to see through different lenses and being perceived as an American and a Black person or straddling between white and Black. That really spoke to me when [Du Bois] spoke about double consciousness.”

Davis said that her parents’ work in public service inspired her work. “[Their work] ingrained in me this idea of public service and believing in something outside of yourself, which is something that has been a thread through my whole life,” Davis said. “I was surrounded by this whirlwind of public service and giving back to the community, and this is part of my DNA.”

When asked about what current issues involving Berkshire County are at the top of her mind, Davis said that she is concerned about future funding for emergency medical services. “We had our Southern Berkshire Volunteer [Ambulance] Squad come to the Selectboard looking for money,” Davis said. “They need money to survive. We ended up giving them just over $200,000 so that they could continue. What they said to us is that they are only getting reimbursed 30 percent of what it costs them to send an ambulance out to help someone in crisis. They’re begging for the state to help, and they are asking the state to say that [ambulance services] qualify as an essential service.”

Davis said that, while police and fire services currently qualify as essential services with the state, emergency medical services, including ambulance services and paramedics, do not qualify. She added that two bills are currently being looked at in the state legislature involving reimbursement and compensation for emergency medical services.

Davis said that other issues that she is concerned about are the state of farming in Berkshire County and issues surrounding homelessness. “A farmland action plan came out in 2020, and right now it’s just a blueprint of what the government hopes will happen,” Davis said. “Although it’s a blueprint, it gives actionable items of what we can do in terms of legislation, so I’m studying that. And one other piece of legislation is the Affordable Homes Act.” Davis called the legislation, which was unveiled by the Healey-Driscoll Administration in November 2023, “the single most important [legislative] item in the Commonwealth right now.”

Davis is a member of the Western Massachusetts Coalition to End Homelessness, and she talked briefly about a recent report issued by the organization. “[In 2023], 709 people experienced homelessness in Berkshire County,” Davis said. “In focusing on different populations, African-Americans, Hispanics, and Latinos make up a greater population of those experiencing homelessness. For example, African Americans and Blacks account for 18 percent of all individuals experiencing homelessness, but they only make up three percent of the population [in Berkshire County].”

Davis also spoke about the ongoing controversy over the Great Barrington Police Department’s investigation at W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School over a copy of the book “Gender Queer.” While the Berkshire Hills Regional School District issued a report on an independent investigation of the incident on February 16, Davis said that an independent report based on an independent investigation previously approved by the town would be ready by next week.

“What’s been lost in this craziness is the effect on the students,” Davis said. “I feel like there was such a whirl of ‘he did this, she did this, they did this.’ I was focusing on the fact that we had a teacher who felt violated and did not know where [the accusations] were coming from. She actually was a victim, but more importantly, the students were victimized. [The students] lost their favorite teacher that they had an ally for those that were in this [Gay-Straight Alliance]. There was no clarity, and I didn’t feel like there was transparency.”

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