page_title: W.E.B. Du Bois Boyhood Homesite
section_title: Conversion to memorial
hierarchical_section_title: W.E.B. Du Bois Boyhood Homesite / Conversion to memorial
caption_attribution_description: Map of the W.E.B. Du Bois Boyhood Homesite (Great Barrington, MA), circa 2009. Item labels: A: Parking lot B: Interpretive sign C: 1969 commemorative boulder D: Homesite area E: Private property
context_page_description: The W.E.B. Du Bois Boyhood 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. The site contains foundational remnants of the home of Du Bois' 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, west of the junction with 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' 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.
context_section_description: In 1967 Walter Wilson and Edmund W. Gordon purchased two parcels of the old Burghardt lands, including the site of the former Burghardt house, that form a U shape around a private residence. They announced their intention to develop the property as a park to commemorate Du Bois, who died in Ghana in 1963. This plan met with local opposition. Wilson and Gordon were both outsiders: Wilson was a controversial area real estate developer originally from Tennessee, and Gordon was from New York City.
  Opposition was generally couched as criticism of Du Bois for his Communist sympathies and his alleged renunciation of American citizenship for that of Ghana late in life. (He never renounced his US citizenship, but did accept it in Ghana.) He died and was buried there. This was a period in the United States of growing controversy related to the Vietnam War and tumultuous social changes, and Du Bois' position was resented by veterans' organizations such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars. 
  Wilson worked to explain Du Bois' complex legacy and support for civil rights. He noted that Benedict Arnold was memorialized at Saratoga for his role in the 1777 Battles of Saratoga despite his later treason during the Revolution. Some supporters of the memorial suspected the FBI was behind the opposition (Du Bois having been under its scrutiny because of his communist views). The FBI was found to have considered planting a critical news story, but it concluded that local opposition was sufficient and did not intervene.  Wilson felt that many opponents were motivated by racial issues, but no opposition was expressed in racial terms. After the achievements of the Civil Rights Movement in gaining national legislation, including the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the movement was changing. Some people felt threatened by the rise of the Black Power movement and racial riots in several cities in the summer of 1967.
  Wilson and Gordon established the Du Bois Memorial Foundation to take ownership of the property. Funded in part by high-profile donors including Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Sidney Poitier, and Norman Rockwell, the foundation received the property in September 1969 and dedicated it to Du Bois later that year. Local hostility continued; the Berkshire Courier, while counseling against violence, suggested the site be vandalized.  The town briefly threatened to prevent the dedication ceremony, suggesting there was a question as to whether the intended use of the site met local zoning regulations.
  Over the next ten years, the Foundation did not develop the property in any significant way. Its members were reluctant to place permanent markers and displays on it for fear of vandalism or theft.  In 1976, a decade after Du Bois' death, the site was designated as a National Historic Landmark, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  
  In 1983 the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with the permission of the Foundation, began a series of archaeological excavations on the property, seeking to research the history of the "Black Burghardt" family. It already had amassed a collection of Du Bois papers, which were transferred to it by Herbert Aptheker, whom Du Bois designated as his literary executor. In 1987 the Foundation turned the property over to the state, with the university as its steward. The university paid for construction of a parking area and the installation of interpretive signs.
caption: Map of the site as of 2009. The green area is mostly wooded, the yellow area is more open. Legend: *A: Parking lot*B: Interpretive display*C: Commemorative boulder*D: Home site area*E: Private property
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