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HOUSATONIC RIVER WALK
W. E. B. DuBOIS RIVER GARDEN
DEDICATION
BIOGRAPHIES OF THE PARTICIPANTS
REV. CHARLES VAN AUSDALL is Pastor of First Congregational Church, Great Barrington.
RACHEL FLETCHER, a Great Barrington resident for more than twenty years, is Founding Director of the town's
Housatonic River Walk and Executive Director of Housatonic River Restoration.
REV. ESTHER DOZIER was born in Alabama and has lived in Great Barrington for more than thirty
years. She has been Pastor of Clinton African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church since 1999. She was
ordained a Deacon in 2000 and an Elder in 2001. She is married and the mother of two sons. She has
three grandchildren.
DR. DAVID GRAHAM DU BOIS is the President and CEO of the W. E. B. Du Bois Foundation,
Inc. The son of Shirley Graham Du Bois and adopted son of W. E. B. Du Bois, David Graham Du Bois is a journalist, activist and
teacher. He spent eleven years in Egypt as a college lecturer, news editor of the Egyptian Gazette and editor at the
Cairo-based Middle East Features Agency. In the 1970s he taught at the University of California, Berkeley and was
editor-in-chief of the Black Panther weekly newspaper. More recently, he has taught journalism and African American
Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He works to keep the flame of W. E. B. Du Bois alive.
DR. RANDOLPH BROMERY is currently President of Roxbury Community College, and has
served as President of Westfield State College and Springfield College. As the Chancellor at the University of Massachusetts, he
participated in the acquisition of Dr. Du Bois's papers and memorabilia. He also participated in the nearly two-
decade effort to name the University of Massachusetts Tower Library as the W. E. B. Du Bois Library.
DR. ROBERT PAYNTER, Professor of Anthropology, is an archaeologist from the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst. In the 1980s he conducted archaeological surveys of the W. E. B. Du
Bois Boyhood Homesite here in Great Barrington with his field school from the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst. He has lectured and published on the Du Bois Boyhood Homesite and work he has done at Historic Deerfield.
DR. WARREN PERRY, Associate Professor of Anthropology, is an archaeologist from Central
Connecticut State University. He directs the archaeological analysis of the African Burial Ground in
New York City and heads Central Connecticut's field school, which has studied African Diaspora
sites in Connecticut. He has lectured and published on these sites and on his archaeological research
into the rise of the Zulu state in Malawi and South Africa.
DR. WILLIAM STRICKLAND teaches political science in the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American
Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where he is also Director of
the Du Bois Papers Collection. He is a founding director of the Institute of the Black World in Atlanta, and has consulted on numerous films and
documentaries on civil rights, including the prize winning "Eyes on the Prize," the PBS documentary "Malcolm X:
Make it Plain", and, most recently the Louis Massiah film, "W. E. B. Du Bois: A Biography in Four Voices." Dr.
Strickland is a member of the Executive Board of the Du Bois Foundation.
BERNARD A. DREW, a Great Barrington resident for 25 years, is a journalist, editor, local historian
and author of popular literature reference books. He is past president of the Great Barrington and the
Berkshire County historical societies. His 656-page Great Barrington: Great Town*Great History
was published in 1999. He is currently working on a social and industrial history of Monument
Mountain.
DR. EMMANUEL DONGALA, Professor of Chemistry and Francophone African Literature at
Simon's Rock College, has served as chairman of the chemistry department and, in 1985, was
appointed Dean of Academic Affairs at the Universite de Brazzaville (Congo). From 1995-97 he
held the position of vice-president of the Math and Physical Sciences section of the Conseil Africain
et Malgache de l'Enseignement Suoerieure (CAMES). Dr. Dongala is also a recognized writer of
fiction as well as a Guggenheim Fellow. He says, "Du Bois has been very important to us
in Africa, because he is the father of Pan Africanism and the first Pan African Congress held in Paris in 1919
was under his leadership."
MS. ELAINE S. GUNN, a former teacher at Bryant Elementary School, was a friend and worker for
the original W. E. B. Du Bois Memorial Committee, 1968-1969, and has been a local activist for
civil rights since the l960s. She reads the comments of MS. RUTH D. JONES and FREDERICK
LORD, members of the original W. E. B. Du Bois Memorial Committee.
JUBILEE SCHOOL of Philadelphia, an alternative community school founded in 1977, has dedicated its last two
academic years studying the legacy of W. E. B. Du Bois. Jubilee's commitment to connect
with the Great Barrington community has sparked a revived interest in Du Bois's social and cultural contributions. This is the school’s fourth
visit to Great Barrington. Attending from Jubilee School are students Jamilah Barnes, Efia King, Paige Lyles and
Aliyah Pressely-Qualls; parents Monica Barnes, Kimberly Everett, Monica Lyles and Linda Qualls; teachers Tanya
Qualls, Bridgett Cassell, Helen Hatchett and Addreia Jones; and founder and principal Karen Whiteside Falcon.
DR. HOMER (SKIP) MEADE has been a resident of Berkshire County for more than thirty years. In addition to
his teaching in the local regional school district and independent schools, he served as a
member of the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst. Dr. Meade has been involved in the planning of many area Du Bois
programs including the 1979 Dedication of the Du Bois Boyhood Homesite as a National Historic
Landmark. More recently, as a Trustee of Berkshire Country Day School, Dr. Meade presented the
idea of a W. E. B. Du Bois Curriculum Project that has embraced and supported BCD's full-year
educational program that touches on themes, investigates the writings, and examines the life of good
works of Dr. Du Bois.
CLINTON AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL ZION CHURCH CHOIR performed for the 1994 W. E. B.
Du Bois dedication in Great Barrington. The choir has also sung for Martin Luther
King Day celebrations at the United Methodist Church. Virginia Conway is director of the choir.
PRICE MEMORIAL AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL ZION CHURCH CHOIR performed for Jubilee
School's first W. E. B. Du Bois dedication in Great Barrington in 2001. Paul Keele plays piano for the choir, which
sings mostly gospel songs.
JOALLEN FORTE is the Choir Director and Cottage Manager at the Berkshire Farm Center and
Services for Youth in Canaan, New York. She is also the Choir Director at Macedonia Baptist
Church, in Great Barrington.
CONTRIBUTIONS to the perpetual care of River Walk and the Du Bois River Garden are tax-deductible and may be sent to:
River Walk
P.O. Box 1018
Great Barrington, MA 01230
(413) 528-3391 river@gbriverwalk.org