Anticipation builds as Great Barrington prepares to mark 150th anniversary of W.E.B. Du Bois' birth

Heather Bellow | Berkshire Eagle

GREAT BARRINGTON — When W.E.B. Du Bois is on the agenda, it's a happy night at Town Hall.

Anticipation met excitement, and expressions of gratitude were abundant as a local group organizing a long festival for William Edward Burghardt Du Bois' 150th birthday celebration got permission from the town Selectboard on Monday to hang banners in his honor, in the town where he was born and raised.

Those will go up soon in the downtown area and near his Boyhood Homesite off Route 23.

The approval was just one step in the kickoff for a festival that will run from Jan. 15 to Feb. 23 to honor the African-American scholar, civil rights leader and author.

Led by festival committee co-chairs Randy Weinstein and Gwendolyn Hampton-VanSant, the committee has arranged a rich assortment of events in town during the week that begins Jan. 15, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and will extend to Jan. 18.

Anticipation met excitement, and expressions of gratitude were abundant as a local group organizing a long festival for William Edward Burghardt Du Bois' 150th birthday celebration got permission from the Great Barrington Selectboard on Monday to hang banners in his honor. Here, Du Bois is shown with his wife, Nina, and son, Burghardt, in a photo taken around 1898.

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