“Champions” features current and historic figures who can inspire the struggle for a worker- and climate- safe world.
W.E.B. Du Bois, born in 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts was a sociologist, historian, author, editor, and activist whom the Encyclopedia Brittanica called “The most important Black protest leader in the United States during the first half of the 20th century.” He shared in the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and edited its magazine The Crisis from 1910 to 1934. His many books included such literary and historical landmarks as The Souls of Black Folk and Back Reconstruction in America. DuBois was a strong advocate for labor unions, but also a determined critic of the racism that pervaded the American labor movement at that time.
While his role as a Black leader is widely known, DuBois’ role as an advocate for the environment is almost unknown. So consider these excerpts from an address he gave to the alumni of his high school in Great Barrington:
This valley must have been a magnificent sight. The beautiful mountains on either side, thickly covered with massive trees, and in the midst of it all, the Housatonic river rolling in great flood, winding here and there.
What has happened? The thing that has happened in this valley has happened in hundreds of others. The town, the whole valley, has turned its back upon the river. They have sought to get away from it. They have neglected it. They have used it as a sewer, a drain, a place for throwing their waste and their offal. Mills, homes, and farms have poured their dirt and refuse into it; outhouses and dung heaps have lined its banks.
We may in time clear the river, give the Searles High school its perfect setting. We may even induce the mills (if we can find out who owns them) to stop pouring their refuse into the river. And so I have ventured to call the attention of the graduates of the Searles High school this bit of philosophy of living in this valley, urging that we should rescue the Housatonic and clean it as we have never in all the years thought before of cleaning it, and seek to restore its ancient beauty; making it the center of a town, of a valley, and perhaps — who knows? — of a new measure of civilized life.
To read DuBois’ speech “The Housatonic River” in full: https://gbriverwalk.org/wp-