GREAT BARRINGTON — With an open hand outstretched to the world, a bronze visage of W.E.B. Du Bois now sits beside the steps of the Mason Public Library.
Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries, president and CEO of Embrace Boston, speaks at a ceremony for the unveiling of a sculpture of W.E.B. Du Bois outside the Mason Library in Great Barrington.
STEPHANIE ZOLLSHAN — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
The statue’s gesture is important to note in this memorial to “the intellectual father of the modern Civil Rights Movement” in his birthplace, said Imari Paris Jeffries, president and CEO of Embrace Boston. At an unveiling ceremony in front of the library on Main Street on Saturday afternoon, Jeffries said viewers wouldn’t find a sword, a closed fist or a flag in Du Bois’ grip.
Rather, contrasting it with the scores of Confederate statues that still stand across the United States, the Du Bois statue would be a monument “not to war, but to wisdom; not to terror, but to truth; not to erasure, but to W.E.B. Du Bois.”
The open palm of the “Souls of Black Folk” author and NAACP founding member is an invitation befitting of the man himself, Jeffries said.
Jeffrey Alan Peck, the great-grandson of W.E.B. Du Bois, unveils a sculpture of Du Bois outside the Mason Library in Great Barrington on Saturday.
STEPHANIE ZOLLSHAN — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
“It is peace — the kind that does not forget violence, but refuses to replicate it,” Jeffries said. “It is a welcome. It is a gesture that says you belong here, even in a nation that tried to make you feel otherwise. It is solidarity — the kind that spans centuries, that binds the hands of the living and the dreams of the ancestors. It is an offering of memory and of intellect — of unyielding belief that Black life contains multitudes.”
A crowd of hundreds gathered in downtown Great Barrington to see the statue three years in the making by sculptor Richard Blake for the first time. Julie Michaels and Ari Zorn, chair and vice chair of the W.E.B. Du Bois Sculpture Project respectively, led the event off with background on how the effort came to be, while also assuring the crowd that this was a homecoming for a native son.
“Recognition of Du Bois, his work and importance to the true meaning of democracy in America is long overdue,” Michaels said. “With the dedication of this monument, we welcome him home.”
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An array of speakers delivered remarks heralding the statue’s arrival, including former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Du Bois biographer David Levering Lewis and Jeffrey Alan Peck, Du Bois’ great-grandson and a board member of the W.E.B. Du Bois Museum Foundation. Many spoke of Du Bois’ impact and legacy as a sociologist, while emphasizing the importance of his lessons in current-day resistance.
Jeffrey Alan Peck, the great-grandson of W.E.B. Du Bois, speaks at a ceremony for the unveiling of a sculpture of Du Bois outside the Mason Library in Great Barrington on Saturday.
STEPHANIE ZOLLSHAN — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
“The significance of this event is that we need to uplift my great-grandfather’s radical commitment to justice,” Peck said. “That we should be inspired by his courage at a time like this.”
It was a celebration equal parts history symposium and multi-disciplinary performing arts showcase, as Wanda Houston joined the Misty Blues for “This Little Light of Mine” and “Hold On” before dancers from Pittsfield’s Youth Alive program stepped it up in the aisle leading to the podium.
The Youth Alive Dance Team performs at a ceremony for the unveiling of a sculpture of W.E.B. Du Bois outside the Mason Library in Great Barrington.
STEPHANIE ZOLLSHAN — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
Other selections included a rendition of Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” performed by the brass section of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a solo trombone performance by Craig Harris and a finale of songs by Randall Martin’s Sweet Life Music Project with Carla Page, who concluded the afternoon with Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.”
Lewis’ remarks shed light on the complicated relationship between Du Bois and the town, as he recalled Du Bois’ ostracization as a vocal critic of the Cold War and his appeal to the United Nations to redress human rights violations perpetrated against racial minorities in the United States. Du Bois was indicted by the Justice Department in 1951 as a foreign agent, only to be later acquitted.
W.E.B. Du Bois biographer David Levering Lewis speaks at the unveiling ceremony for a sculpture of Du Bois outside the Mason Library in Great Barrington.
STEPHANIE ZOLLSHAN — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
When Lewis first arrived in Great Barrington to research Du Bois in 1985, he shared an anecdote about meeting with a member of the local Daughters of the American Revolution chapter, who described him as “a brilliant colored man of whom much had been expected, until years later, his un-American activities had deeply disappointed the town.”
“Always controversial, Du Bois espoused racial and egalitarian beliefs of such variety and seeming contradiction, as often to bewilder and alienate as many of his countrymen and women as he inspired and converted,” Lewis said, noting that he had previously been praised as a “national treasure” by his contemporaries into the late 1940s.
Hundreds gathered outside the Mason Library in Great Barrington on Saturday for a ceremony celebrating the unveiling of a sculpture of W.E.B. Du Bois.
STEPHANIE ZOLLSHAN — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
The town’s appraisal of Du Bois changed radically over the ensuing decades, as Michaels said the town’s Select Board and Library Board couldn’t have been more supportive of the project when first approached. Alongside Zorn, she thanked them, and a long list of other contributors, toward the end of the presentation.
Former Gov. Deval Patrick speaks at the unveiling ceremony for a sculpture of W.E.B. Du Bois outside the Mason Library in Great Barrington.
STEPHANIE ZOLLSHAN — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
Members of the Berkshire state delegation also came forward, with state Rep. Leigh Davis, D-Great Barrington, reading a letter from Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll before tying the significance of the statue and Du Bois’ work to the story of her and her family.
As the daughter of an interracial marriage, Davis said Du Bois’ meditations on the “tensions between how we see ourselves and how the world sees [us]” in “The Souls of Black Folk” rang true for her and her father, “a proud Black man from the South Side of Chicago” who taught her to stand tall in both worlds she inhabited.
Rep. Leigh Davis speaks at the unveiling ceremony for a sculpture of W.E.B. Du Bois outside the Mason Library in Great Barrington.
STEPHANIE ZOLLSHAN — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
“This monument doesn’t just honor a man,” Davis said. “It holds up a mirror and asks us who are we — and who do we want to become? It tells every child, especially every child of color, that they belong — that their story matters. That greatness can rise from this very soil.”
Gwendolyn VanSant speaks at a ceremony for the unveiling of a sculpture of W.E.B. Du Bois outside the Mason Library in Great Barrington.
STEPHANIE ZOLLSHAN — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
Interpretations of the invitation posed by the statue varied among the speakers. When Patrick took the microphone, he said the statue’s placement in front of the library was not only beckoning viewers to find the knowledge within its walls, but also to better understand our fellow citizens.
“This statue here is an invitation for us all to seek wisdom — to do that humbly,” Patrick said. “To seek it and see it in each other.”
For Gwendolyn VanSant, founding director and CEO of Multicultural BRIDGE and a member of the Sculpture Project Committee, it was an appeal to our common humanity to “prioritize the health and future of Black generations to come.”
“For me, it represents imagination — the imagining of a new future,” VanSant said. “It represents a renewed refusal — a refusal of white supremacy. And it represents a liminal threshold — an invitation to give up life as we’ve known it and to instead co-create a world that truly holds space for healthy Black communities.”
Pittsfield step dancers watch the unveiling of a statue of W.E.B. Du Bois on Saturday.
HANS MORRIS — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE