Join Dr. Cynthia Farr Brown for the second virtual talk in the Casting Their Own Light: New Perspectives on Berkshires Black History series. While common knowledge of women of color in Berkshires history often turns on the remarkable life of Elizabeth “Mum Bet” Freeman, there were other women of color, knowledge of whose lives contributes to an expanded understanding of the Berkshires. Dr. Brown will introduce three of these women: Polly (Eldridge) Williams (abt 1783 – 1861); Adeline Grant (1813 – 1895); and Sarah (Lloyd) Askins (1818 – 1906).

Please contact melville@berkshirehistory.org 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 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 19th Century Pittsfield

April 13 - From the Slave’s Cause to Civil Rights: Community and Liberty in the Berkshires before 1909