MA 23, Great Barrington, Massachusetts. County/parish: Berkshire.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places May 11, 1976. NRIS 76000947.
1 contributing site.
The W. E. B. Du Bois Boyhood Homesite (or W. E. B. Du Bois Homesite) is a National Historic Landmark in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, commemorating an important location in the life of African American intellectual and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963). The site contains foundational remnants of the home of Du Bois's grandfather, where Du Bois lived for the first five years of his life. Du Bois was given the house in 1928, and planned to renovate it, but was unable to do so. He sold it in 1954 and the house was torn down later that decade.
The site is located on South Egremont Road (state routes 23 and 41), west of the junction with State Route 71. Plans to develop the site as a memorial to Du Bois in the late 1960s were delayed due to local opposition. The site's proponents attributed this in part to racism, but opposition opinions were generally expressed in terms of rejecting Du Bois's more radical politics in later life. He left the US for Ghana in 1961 and did not return. On May 11, 1976, the site was declared a National Historic Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The site was donated to the state in 1987, and is administered by the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
(read more...)National Park Service documentation: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63793639