John historian Dr. Cynthia Farr Brown for the final talk in this series. Dr. Brown approaches the commonly-held progressive arc of Black history in Massachusetts – enslavement, abolition under the Massachusetts constitution, leadership in the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the success of the 20^th century civil rights movement – by suggesting that newer scholarship tells a more complex story. She will describe research-informed Berkshires scenarios that complicate the classic trajectory, suggesting what we can still discover about how individuals and communities shaped their own and our shared history.

Please contact [email protected] to request the zoom link.

Casting Their Own Light: New Perspectives on Berkshires Black History is a series of three lectures presented by historian Dr. Cynthia Farr Brown is drawn from her research and reading on the history of Black, indigenous, and mixed-race people in the Berkshires, mostly before the Civil War. Additional lectures take place:

Pittsfield’s First Black Neighborhoods:  Thoughts on Black Community in 19^th Century Pittsfield

March 23 – Women of Color in the Berkshires Before 1850