PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Berkshire County Historical Society is rescheduling Dr. Cynthia Farr Brown's lecture From the Slave's Cause to Civil Rights: Community and Liberty in the Berkshires before 1909 to April 20. 

 

The virtual lecture will take place at 5 pm; to receive the zoom link, please contact BCHS at melville@berkshirehistory.org

 

Cynthia Brown is the president of the board of the Berkshire County Historical Society – Arrowhead. She also serves on the Executive Committee of the Berkshire County Education Task Force, and as an Associate Member of Pittsfield's Community Development Board. 

 

She has a doctorate in United States history and her scholarly publications have included co-editing the institutional history, Lesley University: Celebrating Excellence 1909-2009 (2011) as well as other book chapters and articles. Her career has been in higher education as a faculty member and administrator. She is currently Associate Commissioner for Regulatory and Veterans Affairs at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education.

 

According to a press release, Brown approaches the commonly-held progressive arc of Black history in Massachusetts - enslavement, abolition of slavery under the Massachusetts constitution, leadership in the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the success of the 20th century civil rights movement – by suggesting that newer scholarship tells a more complex story. She will describe research-informed Berkshires scenarios that complicate the classic trajectory. Her talk considers what we can still discover about how individuals and communities shaped their own and our shared history.

 

Anyone interested in receiving recorded versions of the lectures from this series can contact melville@berkshirehistory.org.