As john a. powell encourages us, we have to stop othering across color and other lines such as religion, gender, and class that are all man-made constructs and recognize that we can be and do much more organically. As humans, as natural beings, we can co-create a future that acknowledges our “interconnectedness.” There, I would venture, is where we will all find belonging, peace, and strength working collectively towards a future we want to live in as we just did with the renaming of Great Barrington’s middle school.
Read moreJuneteenth Will Be a Holiday About Liberation for Black People and Justice Work for Others
Snapshot: It’s June 2020, we are in the midst of a pandemic, and the U.S. is still reckoning with that reality. Some of us are focused on summer vacations while other businesses are just focused on going back to work. Our capitalist engine won’t stop. The #BlackLivesMatter Movement is a continual uprising. We are still facing police brutality, Black suicides, racialized terrorism... And then we come to a Black holiday, Juneteenth (learn more) and White people are organizing a beloved, sacred Black holiday when most Black folks I know are just exhausted.
As a Black woman, I just cannot shake this portrait. This holiday is very different for Black people, White people, and other people of color.
Read moreSaidiya Hartman on Writing & Telling Stories of Resistance and Beauty in “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments”
Dr. Hartman and Toni Morrison are two of the most powerful Black women voices of our time. By building a new narrative more reflective of the Black woman’s true story in the U.S., Morrison and Hartman model how we can navigate oppression of all shapes and sizes (and at all levels of scholarship) and also model how we can share and lift up each other’s work. The true gift and legacy of their work, I believe—for those us alive now and those who will come later who we will never meet—is the fact that we can learn from Morrison and Hartman about how we can thrive and trust each other in perpetuity.
Read moreHonoring A Long Line of Black Women Who Came Before Me
As many of you know, I am being honored as this year’s Woman of Achievement by Berkshire Business and Professional Women. On the 54th year of this award, I am the first African American woman and I am moved to take a moment to reflect, acknowledge, and share just some of the names of the generation of African American women who came just before me who are all Berkshire women of great achievement. Without them and without so many personal connections with these leaders, I would have not been able to see what might be.
Read more2019 Du Bois Legacy Festival Remarks
This weekend we uplift Du Bois and recognize him for his courage and brilliance. I personally want to celebrate his spirit of inquiry. As an activist, this is something Du Bois modeled for future generations to come. Du Bois was a discerning thinker who asked such important questions in his lifetime.
Du Bois is important to me for so many reasons, but I especially love how he was not afraid of complexity, the nuances of identity, or contradictory ideas as the world and his relationship with several nations of the globe evolved. He held many perspectives and truths, and he shared them readily.
Read moreHonoring W. E. B. Du Bois, Restoring a Civil Rights Icon’s Legacy
Just earlier this week, as I sat with my colleagues looking at one of our legacy accomplishments —a Du Bois family photo in Great Barrington’s Town Hall—I felt Du Bois smiling upon us. Through his legacy, he continues to change the tide… restoring, repairing, and helping us all forge ahead. After a year like 2017, in which we discussed what statues and figures we need to take down as a nation dedicated to equality and justice, we must also ask ourselves who we choose to lift up.
I am so proud that we have come together to lift up the legacy of one courageous African American man, Dr. W. E . B. Du Bois. May we continue to lift him up, celebrate his life, and make him proud.
Read more