Press

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.

SHEFFIELD — A roundtable of Black history scholars will talk next week about the way Elizabeth Freeman’s legacy has been mythologized in a way that confines her story to a narrative that might not be entirely accurate.

Freeman never told it herself, and there might not be enough historical material to work with.

On August 19 the W.E.B. Du Bois Center for Freedom and Democracy will present this first in a series of events to honor Freeman’s journey as a way into a larger conversation about ethical storytelling of African American history. 

Contributed by the Mahaiwe. Photos by Julia Kaplan.
Friends of the historic Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington gathered on July 30 to celebrate the organization’s past, present, and future with — what else? — gorgeous music. Some 600 people attended the Mahaiwe’s 2022 gala, which included dinner under a tent on nearby Memorial Field and a multiple-standing-ovation performance by world-acclaimed vocalist Renée Fleming, who performed a range of arias and modern numbers, from Händel’s “Bel piacere e godere” from Agrippina to “Climb Every Mountain” from “The Sound of Music.”

Grant programs are laced with cumbersome red tape. The high cost of housing makes it difficult for laborers to live in the communities where they work. Smaller farmers have a hard time accessing capital.

Those are among the challenges some Berkshire County farmers say they routinely face. And Wednesday, they’ll have a chance to talk about those issues with the state’s top agriculture official.

Berkshire Bank recognizes the importance of financial growth opportunities for both individuals and businesses. As a community bank, we are driven by our sense of purpose to help raise the economic potential of our surrounding communities. During Black Business Month in August, we celebrate the more than 2 million Black-owned businesses in the United States, including many of our customers and community partners. In Berkshire County, MA, the operational hub of Berkshire Bank, the Berkshire Black Economic Council (BBEC) is working with Black-owned businesses and future generations of Black entrepreneurs to help them reach their dreams while paying it forward. 

GREAT BARRINGTON — Tucked in among the downtown’s commercial buildings is an old, shingle-style church with peeling white paint and a 30-foot tower out front.

Its dilapidated condition belies its historical importance. The Clinton AME Zion Church served as a gathering place and spiritual home for Black Berkshirites for nearly 130 years, a refuge from discrimination, its pulpit a platform for pastors’ antilynching campaigns, and its basement hall a venue for social events. A National Register of Historic Places landmark, the church closed in 2014 and fell into disrepair. 

STOCKBRIDGE — Berkshire County has several well-known cultural venues. But what those sites don’t have is a lot of Black visitors.

According to a survey conducted by the Black Arts Council of the Berkshire Black Economic Council 47 percent of the respondents had never been to Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, 43 percent had never gone to Tanglewood in Lenox and 33 percent had never traveled to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams. And those weren’t the highest numbers. 

TYRINGHAM — Protecting the vote of Black citizens involves a lot more than ensuring their ballots are counted.

It involves deeper work by entire communities to encourage people of color to vote by showing them that their opinion matters, that they are counted as people, that they have a stake — and that even subtle barriers to their running for office are removed, said panelists at a “Protecting the Vote” discussion at the Tyringham Union Church Saturday. 

PITTSFIELD — When students at Crosby Elementary School were having a difficult time returning to school after a year of virtual learning, school leaders decided to launch a diversity, equity and inclusion read-aloud program.

Staff say the program has reminded students that school is a place where they are loved and celebrated.