Press

NORTH ADAMS — Jean Clarke-Mitchell, an assistant professor of social work at Lesley University in Cambridge, has been nominated to the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts’ board of trustees.

A 2000 graduate of MCLA, Clarke-Mitchell is currently serving her second term on the college’s foundation board. 

PITTSFIELD — Local officials and civic leaders Thursday were paid a visit by Kimberly Budd, the chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Budd was appointed chief justice by Gov. Charlie Baker months into the pandemic, in 2020, when she became the youngest chief justice of the high court in the past 150 years and the first Black woman to lead it.

BOSTON — Two people with Berkshire County connections have been named to a jobs and economy panel that Gov.-elect Maura Healey has formed as part of her transition team.

Alfred “A.J.” Enchill Jr., the president of the Berkshire Black Economic Council, and Cheshire native Jondavid “J.D.” Chesloff, the CEO of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable have been named to the four-member panel.

So much for the slow buildup. The come-up for young fighters is tough and there’s a need to have an impressive win-loss record. So it’s commonplace for up-and-comers to avoid each other. Because an early loss might end your career before it begins.

Steve Sumpter (6-0, 6 KOs) got the memo, but he doesn’t care.

PITTSFIELD — Today, I am sharing images that I feel capture the essence of being a kid. And the importance of creating bonds that can build lifelong friendships.

I write frequently about the Reconstruction period after the Civil War not to make predictions or analogies but to show how a previous generation of Americans grappled with their own set of questions about the scope and reach of our Constitution, our government and our democracy.

The scholarship on Reconstruction is vast and comprehensive. But my touchstone for thinking about the period continues to be W.E.B. Du Bois’ “Black Reconstruction,” published in 1935 after years of painstaking research, often inhibited by segregation and the racism of Southern institutions of higher education. 

Frances Jones-Sneed, the celebrated scholar and educator, joked that on Sunday she was surrounded by her “roadies.”

And, indeed, at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, where she was an honoree in the 2022 Governor’s Awards in the Humanities, Jones-Sneed of North Adams had her support crew with her. In tandem to the award itself, her wide and varied crew served as testament to the mark she has made on the world. 

PITTSFIELD — About 15 years ago, Hayford Osafo started Integrity Tax and Accounting Services from his basement after he noticed that people around him needed bookkeeping help.

Now his office on Tyler Street offers accounting and financial services and help for those starting businesses, he told a group of about half a dozen people representing other Berkshire businesses potentially interested in his services.

PITTSFIELD — Today, Governor Charlie Baker, Lt. Governor Karyn Polito, Undersecretary of Community Development Ashley Stolba and MassDevelopment President and CEO Dan Rivera were joined by state and local officials in Pittsfield to announce more than $143 million in grant awards to support 337 local economic development projects in 169 communities. The grant awards were made through Community One Stop for Growth, a single application portal that provides a streamlined, collaborative review process of 12 state grant programs that fund economic development projects related to community capacity building, planning and zoning, site preparation, building construction and infrastructure. 

STOCKBRIDGE — Samuel Donkor heard his phone ring with what his caller ID warned him was “potential spam.” He still took the call. “Hello?”

“Congratulations, you’re now an American citizen!” said the voice on the other end of the line. 

LENOX — During that tumultuous era of civil rights struggles that was the 1960s — and perhaps still is — carloads of Black and white women drove Cadillacs around the American South talking with women in their living rooms about voting and standing up to the injustices in their lives.

Award-winning Boston playwright Tori Sampson turned this little-known story into the play “Cadillac Crew,” now receiving only its second professional production by WAM Theatre at Shakespeare & Company’s Tina Packer Playhouse through Oct. 29.

GREAT BARRINGTON — Twenty years after they first met, things have come full circle for local hip-hop artists Quintavious Walls, Regi Wingo, Eric Shuman and Jackson Whalan.

Together, as BRK BRD, Walls, aka Carolina Black, Wingo aka Dominik Omega, Shuman aka D.R.A.M.A.T.I.C., and Whalan recently released the full-length album, “Corona Diaries” featuring 10 songs and three interludes, with themes spanning the importance of family, racial identity, politics and the pandemic. 

Victor Blackwell shows us two champions tapping into music’s power to evoke empathy, spark collaboration and promote dialogue. Trey Carlisle and Todd Mack started The Black Legacy Project to form racially diverse groups of musicians who build understanding of historically Black songs and contemporary works, and inspire their audiences to do the same.

PITTSFIELD — Born and raised on the West Side, I have had the opportunity to see the changes in the area over the years.

As a kid, I remember the West Side as a place full of family and friends. There was always music playing, the smell of a grill going, kids playing in the streets or at the parks. 

PITTSFIELD — A taste of West Africa has arrived on the West Side of Pittsfield.

Raissa and Mathieu Doumbia, a married couple originally from the West African nation of Ivory Coast, recently opened House of Seasoning Grill at 117 Seymour St., the site of the former Friends Grille. 

HUDSON, N.Y. — Born in Havana to renowned conductor composer Guido López-Gavilán and late concert pianist Teresita Junco, at age 14, the Afro-Cuban virtuoso Ilmar Gavilán left his island home to study in Moscow and Spain, before settling in the United States.

Trey Carlisle and Todd Mack / The Black Legacy Project

Victor Blackwell shows us two champions tapping into music’s power to evoke empathy, spark collaboration and promote racial harmony. Trey Carlisle and Todd Mack started The Black Legacy Project to form racially diverse groups of musicians who build understanding by creating modern interpretations of historically Black songs. Through roundtables and performance, The Black Legacy Project enables musicians of different backgrounds to listen to one another, recognize their interdependence and inspire their audiences to do the same. 

At the heart of “Brake Run Helix” is a rideable sculptural roller coaster. Filling Building 5’s 100-yard-long gallery, the exhibit also includes paintings, a stage for performances, and freestanding sculptures inspired by the form and function of roller coasters. Hill’s practice focuses on experiences that intermingle public struggle, endurance, trauma, and joy, whether within athletics, religion, the American education system or amusement parks. In the United States, amusement parks were contested sites throughout Jim Crow-era desegregation efforts for equitable access to pleasure, leisure and recreation.

The economy is challenging for small-business owners. Companies owned by minorities and women have been among the hardest hit as they have been underserved and overlooked.

One year ago, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art was honored to receive a $300,000 award from the Wells Fargo Foundation to support its rapidly expanding Assets for Artists program. The two-year grant supports a broad spectrum of the Assets for Artists program activities in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut needed to meet more-than-doubled demand for their artist support services at this time of high need.