W E B Du Bois Center at UMass Amherst

09/14/2026

The Fiercest Kind: Five Black Women in Art, Performance, and Resistance, 1937–1965 by H. Zahra Caldwell is now available! An exploration of five famous Black women during the mid-20th century and how they were fighting racism and sexism. To purchase your copy today, click here: https://twp.ai/9PbMLB

09/02/2026

Check out this sequence of events happening this time next week - Wednesday, September 9 - in Great Barrington and at UMass Amherst: https://libcal.library.umass.edu/event/17403102

All are in conjunction with the 'Surveying Gravity' exhibit by Justin Randolph Thompson on display at the Augusta Savage Gallery.

07/30/2026

Get your (free!) tickets now for the UMass Amherst Libraries Fall Reception on Friday, September 18 at the Bromery Center for the Arts. The evening will feature a conversation with Rita Coburn, director of the recent PBS Documentary on W. E. B. Du Bois, 'Rebel with a Cause'.

Book your spot here: https://purchase.arts.umass.edu/EventAvailability?EventId=46001

07/27/2026

What is Black?

That question anchors BLACK WORK: Absence/Absorption, an exhibition curated by Kymberly S. Newberry ’22MA, ’24PhD, who brought together visual, sonic, and mixed-media works asking visitors to consider Blackness not simply as identity or color, but as a living, evolving condition.

Newberry came to art history after more than two decades as a working actor in Los Angeles. She earned both her master's and doctorate in the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies and now teaches at the University of Richmond, where students know her as "Prof. K."

"I want students to know that art helps societies remember who they are," she says.

Read her story >>> https://ow.ly/c1r250Ztoma

07/16/2026

Join the Libraries on August 4, noon-1 p.m., in the Du Bois Center for a special lecture by Du Bois Center Senior Research Fellow Phillip Luke Sinitire, "Tracking David Graham Du Bois's Paper Trails: Archive Stories."
RSVP: bit.ly/sinitiere080426

07/16/2026