As we have learned over the centuries, when it comes to burning witches, it doesn’t really matter if you have burned a real witch or just someone who, in your fevered, partisan, and paranoid imagination, could easily become a witch in the future. It is the burning that is the message.
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.
The current voices against a statue of Du Bois again reduce Du Bois's 95-years of life and writing to his two years as a member of the communist party. It is high time to put this charge in perspective.
Town police had brought in machine guns from Hartford and kept them in the Town Hall basement, just in case violence erupted. Ted Hitchcock said an FBI agent hid in his attic — his house was encircled by the U-shaped park — with binoculars trained on the proceedings.
Civil rights activist Julian Bond died August 15, at the age of 75. In 1969, he delivered the keynote speech at the dedication of the W.E.B. Du Bois homesite in Great Barrington.