One scholar's roots: UMass digs in to renew interest in W.E.B. Du Bois' childhood home

By Kristin Palpini
Staff Writer

Published on September 05, 2008

AMHERST - What may be the most significant site on a historical trail in western Massachusetts may also be the most neglected.

The W.E.B. Du Bois home site was little more than a deteriorating cellar hole off a main road in Great Barrington before the University of Massachusetts Amherst became involved in its preservation almost two years ago.

UMass, which maintains a special collection of Du Bois' writings and correspondence - in addition to a massive library that bears his name - recently teamed up with the Friends of the W.E.B. Du Bois Homesite to renovate the childhood home of this founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

In July, UMass and the friends group held a ceremony to mark renovations to the site and look toward future embellishments to honor Du Bois. The groups, which have been working together since 2006, have installed signs, a parking lot and a pathway to a memorial boulder installed in 1969. The site is on the registry of National Historic Landmarks.

"People come here and are shocked at how little Du Bois is memorialized, how little is known about him or presented about him," said Rachel Fletcher, a member of the Friends organization.

"There should be markers where he worked and played, all these things, and there is precious little," she said. "It's the most important site on the trail."

New interest

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was a prolific American writer, civil rights activist, public intellectual, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, educator and historian who lived nearly a century.

Born in 1868, he became the first black man to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard. Du Bois wrote many novels, plays and poems, but may be best remembered for his 1903 book, "The Souls of Black Folk." He died in 1963.

There has been a re-emergence over the last six years of interest in Du Bois and collaboration among leaders of New England African American historical groups to create a larger and more accessible network of research and resources on the man's life.

The crowning achievement of these collaborations may be the creation in 2004 of the Upper Housatonic Valley African American Trail, a documented trail of 48 sites significant to African American history, including Du Bois' homesite.

The movement is being supported, in part, by UMass.

"It's taken quite a while to get the right alignment of all the stars," said Robert S. Cox, special collections archivist at UMass. "It appears to be here now. Things are moving quickly."

Du Bois and UMass

Du Bois' homesite is particularly noteworthy, not only for once housing Du Bois, but because it was continuously owned by Du Bois' mother's family, the Burghardts, from the early 1800s through the early 1900s.

"There's a deep heritage of African American history in rural New England," said Robert W. Paynter, a UMass anthropology professor who has conducted surveys at the Du Bois property. "The homesite is one of the anchor sites on the upper Housatonic African American trail."

As a child, Du Bois lived in many homes, but had an affinity for a 5-acre parcel in Great Barrington where he lived for several years, the site now referred to as the Du Bois homesite.

After being owned for generations by Du Bois' mother's family, the Burghardts, the home fell into disrepair and was later sold. In 1928, a group of friends purchased the home for Du Bois himself, who intended to turn it into a summer cottage.

This never happened, though, and in the 1950s the home was sold and torn down. The site was bought in 1967 by Edmund Gordon with the intention of erecting a memorial to Du Bois. In 1969, the plot was dedicated to Du Bois and in 1988 the homesite was donated to Massachusetts under the custodianship of UMass.

UMass had, however, adopted Du Bois as a patron scholar before acquiring stewardship of his boyhood home.

Led by then-Chancellor Randolph W. Bromery, UMass by 1973 had already acquired the sought-after personal writings of Du Bois.

Cox estimates the collection makes up 168 linear feet of Du Bois writing, mostly correspondence. It contains letters to and from people such as Mahatma Gandhi, presidents and major figures in the civil rights movement, along with essays and some photographs.

"The (Du Bois) collection is a real landmark. There's no doubt about it, it is the most important collection in our special collection department," Cox said. "It's of real international importance.

"The size and breadth of his interests is so vast every time you think you know what you're going to find, you find something new," Cox said. "Writing on Du Bois is always growing and changing as a result."

Among Cox's favorite pieces in the collection is a 5-foot, red silk birthday card from "Chairman" Mao Zedong of the People's Republic of China, to Du Bois on the occasion of his 91st birthday.

The university had also conducted archaeological surveys at the site (in 1983, 1984 and 2003), uncovering more than 20,000 artifacts that may have belonged to Du Bois or the Burghardts. Among the findings are children's toys, a porcelain marble and a pink-skinned doll.

More honors planned

UMass and the Friends of the W.E.B. Du Bois Homesite have plans to honor Du Bois further. This fall, landscape and architectural experts will convene to discuss how else to memorialize the Du Bois homesite. A full-scale archaeological excavation may be conducted.

"Du Bois, of course, is very important, but the site is also important because it attracts us to issues of black history of supposedly lily-white New England," Paynter said.

The UMass library is now raising money to digitize Du Bois' writings in the university's collection. A scholarly center dedicated to researching Du Bois' writing is also in the works.

"Du Bois was a scholar, but at the same time he was interested in not just the scholarly side of things, but the civic side," Cox said.

"He was interested in turning scholarship into something beneficial for society. We want to have this center be part of that too," he said.

Kristin Palpini can be reached at kpalpini@gazettenet.com.