The event represents the largest yearly fundraising opportunity for the Berkshire NAACP, which uses the award ceremony to bolster its stipend program for Black and immigrant high schoolers attending college or vocational school after graduation.
“Since we've been doing this, the NAACP has given out close to $80,000 to students," said chapter President Dennis Powell. “It's really about our youth. Nothing speaks of freedom more than a proper education, and the monies that we provide our students is to really help them get through that education to cover some of the expenses that they weren't able to cover through different scholarships or grants that they have gotten.”
Powell says it’s been a long year for the group, which works to provide resources, advocacy, and support for the Berkshires’ Black community.
“We've had our difficulties and our struggle, especially in our school- There's been a lot of racism that the students have had to deal with in our school systems, and housing," he told WAMC. "We've spent a great deal of energy in just helping people and supporting people that were being evicted.”
Turning to the event’s titular Freedom Fund Awards, recipients include Dr. David Levering Lewis, who will take home the W.E.B. Du Bois Freedom Fund Award for Community Service and Activist for Peace, Justice, and Equality.
“We picked him because he is the individual that wrote the two biographies on Du Bois that both received the Pulitzer Prize," explained Powell. "And we started giving the Du Bois award, which is the only one of the awards that we give annually, because we wanted to make sure they Du Bois’s name is remembered.”
The award will be given to Lewis by Dr. Kendra Field of Tufts University, who is both last year’s recipient of the honor as well as Lewis’s student.
Awards will also be distributed to two leaders in the Berkshire cultural scene. The first is Pamela Tatge, the Executive & Artistic Director of Becket dance center Jacob’s Pillow.
“Pam, in the art of dance, has really opened up the Pillow to promote justice, equity and equality, and the number of artists that she has brought to the Pillow, and the fact that she has opened up the Pillow to the entire community," said Powell. "They created a bus that enables people from Pittsfield to be able to go to the Pillow during the summer and enjoy the grounds and experience the great venues that the Pillow offers. And the bus would bring them back to Pittsfield- So, if you didn't have car transportation, you were still able to participate.”
Also being honored is Julianne Boyd, the longtime artistic director and founder of Barrington Stage Company who retired in 2022.
“She opened up the art of the theater by giving Black playwrights an opportunity to have their plays experienced by an audience, and opened it up to a lot of our young people in the Black community to be able to go to Barrington Stage and participate in these great plays,” said Powell.
Regional LGBTQIA+ group Berkshire Pride is also being recognized by the NAACP.
“Because of their work in making all of us aware of the right for individuals to be who they are and experience who they are,” said the chapter president.
Artist Brittney Peauwe Wunnepog Walley will receive the NAACP’s Indigenous Peoples Freedom Award for Community Service and Activist for Peace and Justice.
“She’s a tremendous artist who has really, through her art demonstrated peace and justice and equality,” Powell told WAMC.
The Berkshire County Branch of the NAACP will host the 2024 Freedom Fund Award Ceremony on January 20th at the Proprietor's Lodge in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
