On the Prowl: Berkshire booksellers never stop hunting
BY BOOK-TRADER STANDARDS, Eric Wilska started a little late in life—high school. According to him, his reading and collecting began in earnest with an old copy of an Ambrose Bierce book. “When I went to college—you know how kids bring their clothes and bedding—well, I had a trunk full of books that I dragged around […]
Letter from 1863 reveals Mass. 54th’s fight for equal pay
GREAT BARRINGTON The letter is written in a neat hand by Gov. John A. Andrew to a Boston abolitionist and U.S. senator calling attention to the plight of the black soldiers of the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers to get paid the same as whites for their military service during the Civil War. Crisply white […]
Berkshire Festival Celebrates African-American History
Listen to the show here Berkshire County may not be the first place one would expect a wide-ranging celebration of African-American heritage–its black population is only three percent, a little more than a third of that of the commonwealth as a whole. But a summer-long festival is throwing light on the region’s history. In Great […]
Du Bois Center to celebrate Juneteenth in Great Barrington
GREAT BARRINGTON — On June 19 in 1865, cries of freedom and liberty flooded the streets of Galveston, Texas, as residents finally learned the civil war was over and slavery had been abolished. Though the Emancipation Proclamation became effective in 1963, it wasn’t until the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in 1865 that the new […]
Du Bois Center marks end of slavery
The struggle to end slavery in the United States will be commemorated in a lively celebration on Saturday, June 15, 11 a.m.-4 p.m., at the Du Bois Center, Great Barrington. The event kicks off the second annual Lift Ev’ry Voice Festival, a month long celebration of African-American culture and heritage in the Berkshires. Opening in 2006, […]
Hometown visit highlights evolving view of Du Bois’ legacy
A homecoming put a personal touch on the region’s African-American history, when the great-grandson of scholar and civil rights pioneer W.E.B. Du Bois made his first-ever visit to his predecessor’s hometown, where the community’s relationship with its famous son is still evolving. Great Barrington, Massachusetts was good to W.E.B. Du Bois: he was born and […]
Du Bois great-grandson McFarlane tours Great Barrington landmarks
GREAT BARRINGTON—There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle that is Arthur E. McFarlane II’s family tree. One of those pieces, his great-grandfather, W.E.B. Du Bois, is the kind of puzzle piece that completes several different pictures. Du Bois lived in Great Barrington for most of his 95 years. In 1909, he co-founded the National Negro League, […]
Celebrate Du Bois’ enduring legacy
The poet Robert Frost once described home as the “place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” For W.E.B. Du Bois, who revered his Great Barrington roots, home was also the place where his heart was. Fifty-two years ago, Du Bois last stepped foot on Great Barrington soil in […]
