Tuesday was the inaugural W.E.B. Du Bois Legacy Day in Great Barrington, honoring the native son who was an early architect of the civil rights movement, a co-founder of the NAACP, a scholar, a writer and a poet. He was an intellectual giant with ideologies that, during his life, took courage to express.
So, on what would have been Du Bois 153rd birthday, The Eagle asked some town residents for their thoughts about Du Bois, and how it feels to live in a place that has advanced his memory after decades of inaction. What follows are the thoughts of a handful of people: