The original 1969 homesite dedication was deemed so controversial, in part because of Du Bois' embrace of communism late in his life, that no town officials attended the event.
Now another movement to rename a different school building in Berkshire Hills is taking shape. Supporters of Du Bois are ramping up an effort to rename Monument Valley Regional Middle School in memory of Du Bois.
Bard College at Simon’s Rock will host the exhibit 'Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow' beginning Thursday, March 28, in the college’s Hillman-Jackson Gallery inside the Daniel Arts Center.
Taking its name from Du Bois poem “Children of the Moon,” which appeared in Du Bois’ book “Darkwater” in 1920, the event is part of a larger three-day program that brings students together for an exploration of Du Bois’ life, work and legacy.
It was an afternoon of speakers and performers, ranging from scholars and academics to relatives, activists and musicians. And it was topped off by a birthday cake reception, complete with a rendition of Happy Birthday that somehow inspired even the tone-deaf to sing in key.
The program will also honor Du Bois biographer David Levering Lewis, who will receive the town’s first W. E. B. Du Bois Legacy Award honoring recipients for “embodying and preserving W. E. B. Du Bois’ legacy as a scholar and activist for freedom.”
In an incident that garnered much publicity, the Berkshire Hills Regional School Committee in 2004 declined to name after Du Bois one of the two new regional schools it had just built.
The exhibit, titled "W. E. B. Du Bois: Global Citizen Rooted in the Berkshires," was put together by Randy Weinstein, who runs the Du Bois Center at Great Barrington, with the help of the other Du Bois Center—the one at UMass Amherst, where many of Du Bois' papers are kept. The exhibit is part of the months-long celebration of the 150th anniversary of Du Bois' birth.
In Interfaith Celebration program will begin with a service opened by Rev. Cara Davis and officiated by Wray Gunn of the Legacy Festival and Clinton Church Restoration with a performance by Olga Dunn School of Dance and songs from local congregations.
Last month, the board of trustees of the town's libraries endorsed the idea of putting a statue of the scholar, civil rights leader and Great Barrington native in front of the Mason Library on Main Street in the center of town. The project can only move forward if sufficient funds are raised and the Historic District Commission and the selectboard approve.
Monument Valley Regional Middle School was selected for the renaming rather than a second try at Muddy Brook Elementary due, in part, to the fact that Du Bois' life is actually taught in the middle school curriculum.
The birthday events for Great Barrington's most famous native son seem to signal a newfound appreciation of the civil rights leader, who had not been fully embraced by the community because of his sometimes-controversial past.
Gwendolyn Hampton VanSant, who directs Multicultural BRIDGE and co-chairs the Du Bois 150th Committee, was in Town Hall Monday night with Randy Weinstein, founder and director of the Du Bois Center at Great Barrington, to gain approval to mount banners on utility poles in town and to report on the progress the committee had made on celebrating the birthday of iconic scholar and civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois.
NAACP leader and author James Weldon Johnson wrote “God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse,” in a little cabin off Alford Road on the Alford Brook and at the Mason Library.
