LENOX, Mass. — The Lenox Library will continue its Distinguished Lecture Series on Sunday, Feb. 5, 2023 at 4:00 p.m., when historian Kendra T. Field will talk about the establishment of the new Du Bois Freedom Center in Great Barrington.

 

The lecture is free and open to the public and will take place in the main reading room of the Library, located at 18 Main Street, Lenox. Visit https://lenoxlib.org or the Library's Facebook page for more information.

 

According to a press release: 

 

The mission of the W.E.B. Du Bois Center for Freedom and Democracy is to educate the public about the life and legacy of civil rights pioneer W.E.B. Du Bois and the rich African American heritage of the Berkshires. Located at the former Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church in Great Barrington, where he was born and raised, this  center of Black thought and remembrance constitutes the first museum and living memorial in North America dedicated to Du Bois' life and legacy.

 

Kendra T. Field, the Du Bois Center's Historian-in-Residence, is Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies and director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at Tufts University. Her first book, "Growing Up with the Country" (2018), traced the migration of her Afro-Native ancestors after the Civil War. Her current book project, "The Stories We Tell," is a history of African American genealogy from the Middle Passage to the present. Dr. Field abridged David Levering Lewis' Pulitzer-prize winning "W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography" (2009). 

 

She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Harvard University's Charles Warren Center. Dr. Field has advised and appeared in historical documentaries including Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, Roots: A History Revealed, and Tulsa Burning.